


Utraque denarium – Two sides of a coin

by MissesMarvellous



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale is Bad at Being an Angel (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Questions (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Being a Demon (Good Omens), Gen, God is shipping them, I have no idea how to write ace sorry sorry, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, No Smut, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens), Worried Aziraphale (Good Omens), and, but they are bad at feelings, only feels and angst and fluff and humor, sort of a meet-cute, they are both idiots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25963129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissesMarvellous/pseuds/MissesMarvellous
Summary: The ineffable plan is playing out, because it has to. But while it does, it’s taking more than a few unnecessary turns and twists. God is watching as the angels, demons and humans follow that plan without really knowing it and finds Herself, more often than not, annoyed by the ways of Her own children.This fanfiction is, in many ways, a different take on the ineffable plan, the way angels and demons coexist and how we as humans perceive good and bad. It focuses on the relationship between the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley in its many iterations.It is exploring philosophical questions in the whimsical manner we know and love from the works of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman whilst focusing on two absolute idiots that bump into each other and discover that they are not as different as they were taught.[AU: Retelling the (love)story of Aziraphale and Crowley whilst God is shipping them, because they are the only ones who seem to get Her plan.][Also I am a history nerd and write them into all the historical settings.]
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	1. Introduction

It is fair to say that many things, no matter how well planned, just don’t work out. The reason behind this being factors one simply cannot control. This applies to humans and anything beyond.

However, it does not apply to things planned by someone who has control over everything. Assuming that an omnipotent being is keeping watch over the world, one must agree with the fact that there cannot be room for unplanned mishaps within that beings watch. Everything follows its plan, because all the factors are under the control of that very being.

Now if that being would hatch a plan, it would be correct to say that everything within that plan is indispensable. It has to happen because it is part of the plan. Nothing can stop that plan, because if that were the case the omnipotent being wouldn’t be omnipotent.

All that’s to say: If something can happen, it might not be essential to the plan, but it’s also not going against it, as nothing can, by nature, do that.

If this segment is confusing you, dear reader, fret not, for you are not the only one. See, several thousand years ago an ethereal being, an angel if you will, discovered that they could think. Now, to understand the weight of this discovery, you my dear reader have to understand that thinking hadn’t always been a concept. For instance, it took humans over five thousand years to realize that they, in fact, could think. The ongoing discussion about what that means has to this day not found any kind of satisfying answer, because thinking in itself is a rather weird concept that seems to contradict its own existence.

When that “first angel” discovered that they could think, they quickly jumped through the existential crisis that followed suit and developed the theory that other angels could think, too. They conducted that if they used their jumpstart right, they could influence the thoughts of others, before they even knew that this was possible. Everything else that followed didn’t interrupt the plan of the omnipotent being, because it is, as discussed prior, impossible. It did however piss that being off.

The angel used the fact that they had discovered their own thoughts, to take the plan and twist its logic further and further until other angels were so overwhelmed by it, that they began calling it ineffable. Since it happened no matter what, questioning it was not a thing they allowed. This unfortunately slowed down the progress of the plan quite a bit.

After humans were created, a process that, in many ways, refined the whole thinking thing (as well as some other details like reproduction (making all the beings by hand turned out to be quite a bother)), some of the angels began developing the idea that they could think for themselves and didn’t have to follow the thoughts of the first angel. They began asking questions, something that made the omnipotent being happy and annoyed the angels following the first one. Keep in mind, that this first angel had no authority further than the one they’d given to themself.

They rallied against those asking questions and punished them by letting them fall, another thing that was new at the time. Falling meant being the bad guy, it meant being on the other side before anyone knew that there was such a thing as an “other side”. Their auras turned negative, their minds were freed. Essentially, fallen angels were much more human than the unfallen ever could be.

Now the problem is, that the first angel to fall didn’t learn from this experience and virtually did the same thing as the first angel to think. Bitter and hurt, they pushed their thoughts against heaven onto all the other fallen angels and the whole ordeal turned into something much nastier than it had to be. It also meant that all progress was lost.

God, the previously mentioned omnipotent being, watched Her children fight and manipulate each other and shook the part of Her body one could compare to a head. The plan was playing out, because of course it was. But the way it did was unnecessarily complicated.

She watched the whole thing and caught Herself growing tired of it all. That was, until something changed. On the wall of the Garden of Eden, an angel and a demon did something they never did before and it made God quite excited: They had, for all intents and purposes, a conversation.


	2. The first humans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere in Africa, on a very tall (and now very unnecessary) wall, a demon and an angel start something.

Aziraphale was an angel; that he knew. He knew that it was his purpose to guide humans, watch over them and lead them in the right direction. So far so good. His personal problem was, that he had no idea what the right direction was. So he just did the best he could and figured that it would be fine.

For him, the best thing to do was to keep the humans safe. He kept reminding himself of this, as he stood upon the wall and watched Adam and Eve in the distance, the dim glow of his former sword illuminating their figures through their path through the rough desert.

He really wanted to believe that this was the best thing he could’ve possibly done, because if it wasn’t, that would mean he was a bad angel. Not good at his job at all, really.

God, looking over his actions on this particular day, was quite glad that the angel had these questions. She knew that he felt bad for having them, but they meant that something was finally happening. The first humans were out of the garden and the plan could progress. She was smiling upon the angel, as if that could lift his worries. Unfortunately for him that was not how it worked.

A snake slithered up the wall, catching Gods attention as well as the angels. It was the fallen angel (they self-identified as demons now, God reminded Herself) Crawley. She watched, as these two talked, seemingly without shouting things at each other that would later be labeled as obscenities.

“Seems like we are either good at our respective jobs, or really really bad at them”, the demon said to the angel, sporting a sly grin.

“I for one”, the angel sounded snippy, “chose to believe that helping them out cannot be a negative. I mean”; he stuttered, his cool façade melting, “surely that’s what She would have wanted, right?” He hesitantly pointed towards the sky. God rolled Her non-existent eyes because why would She be limited to being above anything. The angel continued: “Keeping them safe? Making sure they survive? That’s my job after all.”

“Yeah I suppose so.” The demon looked towards the two figures in the distance. “I mean now that they’re out, what does it really matter? The cage is no more, our jobs are different now.”

“Is that so?” The angel tried his best not to look at the demon for long amounts of time, since he felt like that would be inappropriate.

“Yeah, new ways to influence them for the both of us. I’m looking forward to it, to be honest. Walking around that garden all day kinda loses its charm after a while.” He shrugged and then, as if something struck him, groaned. “Although I will miss the walking part. Having no legs as a snake is probably gonna suck.”

The angel chuckled and caught himself less than a second later, returning to a sour facial expression. “I found the garden quite peaceful, lots of leisure time.”

“Speaking of leisure time”, the demon laughed, “weren’t you on apple tree duty? What happened to that?”

Aziraphale coughed very unconvincingly and looked at his shoes. “I was there, but then Adam did a rather dumb thing and required my assistance.”

“Typical Adam”, Crawley snarled, “always getting himself into some sort of situation.”

“I do hope their children will grow in their mothers direction”, the angel nodded, trying not to think about how he was agreeing with a sworn enemy, “can you imagine more of his lot. They’ll be extinct before we know it.”

“Gotta say, they are handling this whole decision-making-thing better than I thought”; Crawley said more to himself than to Aziraphale.

The sky above them turned dark.

“Oh dear”, the angel felt the first drops of rain fall and watched the humans, concerned that the sword would be extinguished. It wasn’t. Pleased with this, he got briefly overwhelmed by positive emotions and extended a wing towards the demon as to keep him dry.

The demon came closer, just a little bit. But it was enough to make Aziraphale question a whole lot of things.

God watched them for a little longer and for the first time in Her forever, She wasn’t bored.

*

She was quite pleased to see that the two beings didn’t follow their respective leaderships, the first angel and the first demon, but started doing their own thing. It came easier to the demon, since he was by nature closer to the humans than the angel.

Still it took them a few generations to meet again.

Aziraphale followed the first humans closely, mingling with them as soon as there were enough of them for him to be inconspicuous about it. He showed them ways to cultivate plants, prepare meals and build structures. Meanwhile the demon introduced them to things not vital for survival. He made them paint, sing and tell stories.

It was under the shadows of broad trees, along a river in Northern Africa, a few hundred years after the Eden incident, when the demon and the angel finally met again.

Crawley stood in one of the huts and chatted with the woman living in it.

“Really Anippe, to me it seems like carving everything in stone or clay is putting literature in a corner. I mean who will write, when you have to get a bunch of clay on order to do it? It’s impractical.”

The woman was soaking reed in a hole in the ground, stomping on it with her feet in order to separate the fibers from each other.

“The stone thing seems to be working, though.” She stomped once more, before lifting her feet out of the hole looking satisfied with her work. “I mean the statues along the river have captions and people come to read them.”

“Yes”, the demon dragged the word out sounding whiny, “but imagine you could carry them with you. So much easier.”

He rolled his eyes as soon as Anippe wasn’t looking at him. Tempting her to invent papyrus was much more complicated than he had thought.

“I mean, imagine finding a different way to write things down. Like a sheet of something, maybe a plant or something?”

The woman crinkled her nose, “no I don’t think that would work. It would fall apart under the chisel.”

Crawley had to stop himself from groaning. He hadn’t even started with the whole ink-part yet.

“There could be a different way of writing, maybe if we mix charcoal with water or oil-“

“Like the stuff we put on our eyes?” Anippe was laughing, “that sounds crazy!”

He was at his wits end. There was no way this was happening anytime soon.

“Food should be ready”, the woman mused, “c’mon, let’s get to the fire.”

Crawley followed her out of the hut and was struck when he spotted a familiar face amongst those sitting around the big fire.

“I’ll be right back”, he told Anippe and slithered across the makeshift-plaza.

“Hello angel”, he smirked and sat down next to the unsuspecting being.

“Oh my, it’s you.” The angel looked positively flabbergasted, “what are you doing here?”

“Ah you know”, Crawly waved his hand nonchalantly, “the Mesopotamians are kinda doing their own thing, South America seems to be working out for once and I thought hey, why not pop in here real quick and catch up with the first settlers?”

“Any devious plans you’ve been following?” The angel sounded casual, but Crawly could hear the meaning behind his words. He held back laughter, “don’t worry, I’m not gonna make the population explode again, I learned my lesson in Australia. Too many damn humans to tempt, makes my job harder, too, you know?”

“Well, good.” Aziraphale took a leaf and picked out some of the food by the fire.

“You’re eating?” Crawley raised one of his eyebrows and looked the angel up and down curiously.

“Don’t judge.” The angel pouted, “I find that it helps me understand them better. Food is such a huge thing in their lives. It would also be rather unfair, if I were to show them cooking without getting to taste any of it.”

“Oh you did the whole cooking thing? I was wondering how they caught on so fast.” He sighed, “sometimes I wonder how they would get anything, if it weren’t for us.”

The angel gave him a curious glance, “so you’ve been meddling with them, too?”

“You could say so”, Crawley watched in awe, as the angel ate his food, “I’ve been tempting them to do things other than work.”

“Yeah I’ve noticed that in Australia.” The angels remarked.

“Not like that! I mean like procrastination. Drinking, painting, doing their funny statues, writing – you know, stuff that isn’t useful to anyone else really.”

The angel stopped and considered Crawley’s words for a few seconds, “you know that they use that stuff to pray, right?”

He felt a sour taste on his tongue, “well I can’t really control that now, can I? Believe me, it wasn’t my plan to back up their worshipping. More of an accident, really.”

Aziraphale chuckled and immediately looked displeased with himself for it, “well if it’s of any consolation to you, they use the stuff I taught them to go to war on each other.”

“So we’re both being bad at our jobs again, huh?” Crawley grinned.

The angel looked very unhappy about this statement, but he nodded. “It does seem like we’re quite incompetent.”

“You know”, Crawley had an idea, “we could always tell our head offices that we did the doings of the other? You could take credit for the worshipping-stuff and I for the war-stuff.”

Crawley wasn’t surprised at the gasp that his idea prompted from the angel. “That would be lying!” The ethereal being put his leaf down and shook his head. “I could never lie to my superiors.”

“So you’d rather they see you as an idiot?” Crawley leaned back and looked at the stars. Of all the things the angels helped create, he liked the stars most.

“I can live with that”, Aziraphale relaxed again and got back to his leaf, “I assume Hell thinks of you as one, too. I like that thought.”

“Two idiots on earth, how’s that for a book-title?” Crawley laughed to himself.

“What’s a book?” Aziraphale asked.

God, watching from the metaphorical bleachers, was a big fan of those two idiots.


	3. We have to talk about Alexander

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexander the Great isn't all that great, in fact, he is quite incompetent. At least that's what Crawley thinks. God doesn't disagree.

“Angel!”

Aziraphale almost dropped his vase at the sudden exclamation.

The being responsible made his way across the atrium. It was, of course, the demon Crawley. Aziraphale had by now gotten used to the fact that he called him angel. In fact, he kind of enjoyed the name. He would never let the demon know that of course.

“Crawley, what in Her name are you doing here?”

The angel had settled in Constantinople after a long time in China. The constant rebuilding of civilization in the Asian parts of the world had been wearing him thin over the last millennia. He needed a break. The demon knew this.

“I would love to tell you that I’m just checking in with you. But we have a problem.” Crawley reached Aziraphale, passing him on his bee-line towards the kitchen.

“What...”, the Angel stirred around, irritated, “what are you doing?”

“Looking for wine. I need a drink. Just came from Tamil Nadu and let me tell you, the whole Tamil King business is getting out of hand. Chera, Chola, Pandyan – who cares? Just get on with it. I was just there for the Kabaddi tournament anyways, wasn’t planning on replacing a whole system.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. Typical for the demon. Show up somewhere for one thing, only to do another thing entirely.

“The Kabaddi tournament?” He sighed and followed Crawley to the kitchen.

“Yeah it was quite the spectacle. Lots of blood, you wouldn’t like it.” He was roaming the cabinets.

“Wine’s to the left”, the angel told him exasperated, “I have to say, I’m much more of a theater-guy. They are starting the sports-thing in Greece now, and while it is interesting, the whole talk about honor and such gets boring after a while.”

Crawley turned around, a sheepish grin on his face. “Oh I’ve heard about the Greece way to do sports. Aren’t they naked the whole time?”

Aziraphale felt his face heat up. “They are, but it’s for aesthetic mostly.”

“Yeah I bet it is. All oiled up like that, very”, he lifted his hand in an ironic guesture, “aesthetically pleasing.”

“I know what you are inferring here and I am going to ignore it.” The angel had heard the rumors about Greek sports events, but he chose not to think about that. What the humans did after this sportive physical activity was their business after all.

“I just think it’s funny, you know?” Crawley apparently wasn’t done yet. “With you inventing it, I would have never thought they would use it to-“

“Yes well that’s becoming quite a pattern now, isn’t it? I remember you inventing theater as a ruse for humans to commit sins and share them with others. How did that work out for you, my dear “Dionysus”?”

Crawley stopped his motions to give Aziraphale a dirty look. “Low blow”, he said. “Wasn’t my fault they took this and put gospel in it. I had them this close”, he held two fingers together, “to doing full on heresy, boom, all of a sudden someone comes around and proclaims that myths are bad because Gods aren’t human blabla. Made five centuries of my work disappear like that.” He snapped his fingers and turned back to the wine cupboard.

“At least your wine plan worked out.” Aziraphale shrugged and pulled out two mastos for drinking.

“Not really.” The demon had found, what he’d been searching for and returned to Aziraphale with a triumphant look on his face. “They use wine to worship in Egypt, Jerusalem and now Mesopotamia, too. Swear to god, a Greek bloak tried explaining to me the other day, how drinking wine isn’t a sin but holy rather, since it makes it possible for them to experience their gods. Makes me wonder how the hell I’m so bad at this.”

They settled down in the garden, passing the amphora between them to fill their respective mastos. Crawley couldn’t help himself to take a long sip directly out of the amphora. Aziraphale decided not to comment on it.

“Makes you think, doesn’t it.” The demon grinned. “You invented the thing I like and use to make people sin, I invented the thing you like watching. Almost as if we’re-“

“Don’t say it.” Aziraphale rubbed his temples. They had this discussion far too often. He realized that Crawley was somewhat right. Leave it to them to influence this world in the exact opposite directions to what they should.

“Would be real easy to just… send a memo to our head quarters swapping stories…” Crawley took a sip and grinned. He knew by now, how to push the angels buttons.

Aziraphale smacked his lips annoyed and cleared his throat. “You were saying something about a problem?”

“Right!” His opponent snapped back into serious mode, well, as serious as a demon could get, and nodded. “We have to talk about Alexander.”

“Which one?” The angel had a vague idea, who Crawley was talking about.

“What do you mean which one? The young king, son of Philip II. Rather famous chap, just about to start invading half the world.” Crawley gave him an irritated look.

“Ah yes, that one.” He nodded slowly, waiting for Crawley to further explain their apparent problem.

“The guy is mad!” The other being shifted on his garden couch and laid his head in his hands. “I went over there to scout his plans out, now that his father died, and let me tell you – the guy is planning some bad shit.”

“Isn’t this good for you?” Aziraphale made a mental note of going over there himself. After all, Macedon was only a short trip away. He didn’t quite grasp the problem Crawley was reporting. After all, humans invaded each other all the time. It was half the reason he changed locations. The constant new management in Central Asia was giving him a headache.

“You’d think so, but funnily enough I’d rather not see the civilization I’ve just spent a few centuries developing burn down like that.”

Aziraphale gave the demon a curious look. He really cared for these people, he thought. That was rather unusual for a demon, wasn’t it?

“Why do you care? Humans do that all the time. It’s tiring, yes, but I’ve come to accept the fact that they are more blood thirsty than I expected. Remember the Valdivas in South America? Or the Chavín de Huántar?”

“Aren’t they still there? The Chavín I mean.”

“Yes, technically, but I’m afraid not for long.” Aziraphale sighed. “That’s the human experience, after all.”

“I see someone’s become quite the cynic after their stay in China”, Crawley muttered.

“I’m not a cynic! I’ve just come to accept the way of things.” Aziraphales tone became unintentionally aggravated. “And besides, what do you think we can do about Alexander? I tried talking them out of things, it’s never worked so far. Small things, yes. But preventing wars? Once they set their minds on it, all I can do is damage control.”

“Then let’s do that! Let’s both go there and do the best we can. I’m certain we can think of ways to please our head quarters whilst also following out own agenda! Think of all the culture that will get lost! The art! The languages!”

The angel scrunched his nose, “you mean work together? To help humankind? I understand you want me to do good, but you?”

“Ah, I wouldn’t say I’m gonna do good deeds precisely. I was thinking more of me as a war advisor, leading him to success in a less destructive way. Still bad, but-“

“not as bad as it could be.” Crawley hummed in agreement.

Aziraphale couldn’t believe he was actually thinking about doing it. He couldn’t work together with a demon! It was one thing to meet with him. What else was an immortal being supposed to do? Crawley was the only one to, in many ways, really understand him. They both lived through all of human history. Humans lived short lives that were filled with friendship and love, but they didn’t stick around long enough. Sometimes he needed to talk to someone who understood the loneliness of an immortal life. But fraternizing was different than working together. Aziraphale had to remind himself that, should Crawley be able to persuade him into doing devilish deeds, he could fall.

“Tell you what”, the demon interrupted his thought process and Aziraphale wondered, if he could tell what he was thinking about. “I’m gonna be there, doing my thing. I’m gonna be way less effective alone, but I’m set on doing it. So if you’re gonna be there, great. If not, don’t sweat it. There will be other civilizations to safe. I understand that you’re tired after trying to keep China together for the last 800 years.” He rose from his couch and turned to leave. “Thanks for the wine, angel.”

And with that he was gone.

Aziraphale groaned and turned on his back, looking up in the sky in desperation. God, of course, saw this. She was lingering around the garden, listening in on the pair. She heard the angels prayer to Her. He was asking her what to do, but when She was honest, She had no idea. Sure, She was omnipotent. But that didn’t mean She always knew what to do. The plan was happening either way.

The angel was thinking, She like that.

He thought about China. How often did he encounter Crawley there? At first, he’d been hesitant to meet with the demon. He was his enemy after all. But after a few thousand years he gave in. The prospect of not being alone all the time was too promising. Too good. And it was his core believe, being an angel and all, that all life had purpose. Even demonic life.

There was more behind this, than just his angelic love for all life, though. He knew that and he knew that God probably knew that, too. He was correct. She had watched them grow closer into something one could almost call a friendship, but not quite. A bizarre dance between two forces, grown to think they should hate each other but not being able to follow through with it.

She tried sighing and was positively surprise at how cathartic it was. She would love to intervene, bring Aziraphale to the right path. But then again, She had made her creatures able of doing these things themselves. They had all the instruments to get to the right path, Aziraphale was just struggling to use them. And that was fine. He was further away from humans than Crawley, she reminded herself. It was going to take him longer by default.

Still, She couldn’t help but to be pleased when the angel finally rose with a plan in mind.

*

Crawley knew that Aziraphale was coming to Macedon. He knew the angel would make a small fuss, over think everything and then go to do it anyways. It was his MO and Crawley by now had over three thousand years of practice in reading the angels mind.

He slithered his way into the council of Alexander without much of a problem. The young king was thirsty for life, for something to happen. He could emphasize with this. But he also didn’t want it to go down like it always did. It tired him out. Working on human culture only to see it being destroyed was fine when culture meant a few statues and a building or two. But now? Literature and art had really been picking up the pace and he’d grown rather fond of it. Especially the Egyptian and Persian stuff. Masterful storytelling, done by carving it into a wall or waving it into rugs. Also: poetry. There was no art form more sinful, yet holy. It was the perfect mix, he thought. The most human form of things.

Of course he couldn’t tell Aziraphale any of that. The angel was objectively speaking a nice guy, of course he was, he was an angel after all, but he followed the heavenly script to a T. Crawley chuckled to himself, as he stood in his royal quarters. The expression “to a T” had just been established and he liked it a lot.

He’d been called to a meeting with Alexander and the rest of his council. It wouldn’t be long, until they started their journey. So far he successfully managed to shape the path they would take, planting the idea in the kings mind, that he only had to technically invade them. That way he could cover more ground and didn’t risk any rebellions.

He entered the council chamber to a familiar face. Aziraphale stood next to Alexander, dressed appropriately for once. Usually he didn’t care much for time appropriate clothing. Crawley smiled. Aziraphale frowned.

“Thank you for meeting with me, my friends.” Alexander started the meeting, but neither Crawley nor Aziraphale cared to listen to him. They spent the next minutes shooting looks towards each other, until they could finally speak.

"We are going to crush them, with the force of our rage!" Someone shouted in the middle of an especially heated exchange of looks between the angel and the demon. Both interrupted what they were doing to roll their eyes.

“I see someone’s had a change of heart.” Crawley popped up next to the angel after the meeting was done.

“One could say so”, the angel said reserved. He acted nonchalantly, but Crawley knew how big of a deal this was for him. “Don’t think I’m here to work with you, though.” The angel added. “I’m here to be a positive influence on this young man. To keep him from getting too much into his own head.”

“Yeah I see you’re being real successful with that”, the demon remarked sarcastically, looking over to the king, who was telling exaggerated stories about his abilities to binge drink strong wine to some of the chamber women attending the gathering.

“I’m working on it.” Aziraphale didn’t look at Crawley whenever they talked. The demon had noticed that over the years. He always looked around nervously, trying very hard to ignore the glared the demon gave him. Crawley had fun doing this. He knew that Aziraphale was still a little afraid of him and used this, to have a good time with the angel. It wasn’t moral, not at all, but he was a demon and he imagined they would get a good chuckle out of it in a few hundred years.

He wasn’t the only one having fun. God settled around them, as they moved along with Alexander. She watched Crawley convince the king that it was much better to just show up with the bigger army and scare the enemy into submission, rather than to actually fight them. His men were thankful and it was a surprisingly effective. At the same time Aziraphale got Alexander to spare the other cultures and adapt to them instead of destroying them. They made a great team, even if neither of them would ever admit to it.

This continued on for quite a while. A few years in fact. Nothing much to the beings, but Alexander aged and got more and more reckless the more land he accumulated. A common flaw in humans. A mistake made by Her, that She was all too willing to admit to. When She created humanity, She didn’t account for them to do this. But that was how they were and She accepted that. After all, most angels and demons turned out to be dicks, too. Didn’t mean there weren’t some good ones in there. And really, people couldn’t judge Her for Her mistakes. Creating life was, after all, a very complicated process and She, like everyone who ever tried creating something, had her ups and downs.

Koalas for instance. After She finished creating them, She was convinced She had done good. The ideal animal. But then She had learned about Chlamydia and had to start the whole process anew. Pandas were next. Truly perfect, right? Fluffy, peaceful creatures who did their thing in the world. Except for Her mistake with their reproduction. See, when She created them, She hadn’t thought too much about that yet, since making creatures by hand had been more of a hobby for Her back then. The result was an animal too lazy to reproduce.

Lions had been created right after the humans, which meant that by then She had the whole reproduction-thing down, but they suffered from the same problem as the early humans. The male was rather thick in the head, strong, yes, but not much else to it. The females soon started hunting and leading the packs, much like Eve had with the early humans. As time grew on, humans developed more complex personalities, whilst lions… well didn’t.

Unfortunately, Alexander was a lion of a man. There was not much too him, other than the want for more. More of what, he didn’t know exactly. He just wanted more. This lead to a rather untimely death, leaving Aziraphale and Crawley to an absolute mess of a kingdom. They did well with it. Aziraphale separated the parts out to Alexander’s other companions while Crawley made sure to stop them from turning half of Asia into a dollar store version of Greece. God had no idea what a ‘dollar store’ was, but she liked the way it sounded.

They met one last time, in what was now Ptolemaic Egypt. Ptolemy the third had just taken office, if you will, and he was doing okay. Things were going swimmingly, for now. She knew that this wouldn’t last forever and so did the angel and the demon. But much to her amusement, the two had by now almost dropped the act and admitted to working together. As always, it was the angel who had his problems with this.

“He’s quite popular”, Aziraphale said, looking down from their vantage point on one of the pyramids. They sat on the golden tip of Ramses II.’s grave, sharing an amphora of sweet wine that Aziraphale had taken with him when they returned from the East.

“So I’ve heard. Not all of them are doing this well”, the demon smiled, “but their doing good enough. I’m a bit nervous to leave them alone again, though.”

“Me too”, Aziraphale sighed. “But it’s been almost a century. I feel like it’s time to move onto other things.”

They both knew what this meant. It was time to split up again.

“You got any idea where you might be headed next?” Crawley watched the sun set in the distance.

“I thought about the north, I’ve heard the people there are making progress and I think they could probably use some miracles on their way.” Aziraphale didn’t ask, where Crawley was headed, but they both knew the question stood between them.

“I’ve arranged for a position on one of the Polynesian islands, they are a little too content with their island life for my taste. Might get them to explore the oceans again.”

“Oh, did they stop doing that?”

“Yeah”, he shrugged, “nobody knows why. I bet it has something to do with the damned Tamil Kings, though. I always has.”

They both laughed at that. It had become an inside joke between them that, whenever something in the general Asian realm went wrong, the Tamil Kings had to be involved. Historically speaking they were correct about that almost every time.

(God didn’t know what it meant to google something, but She felt the sudden urge to tell the readers of this fanfiction to look up the Tamil Kings and general Southern Indian history, for it was an exquisite piece of history that she felt, had been forgotten far too soon. Yet She also knew, that the writer of this piece of literature wasn’t culturally equipped to explain this part of the world, so the dear readers might be better off looking up the information via people who actually knew what they were talking about.)

God left them there, still talking, taking in their last evening as a somewhat successful team. She knew that they would come to meet again, but She also knew that they needed a break. Especially the angel. He was spending most of his time questioning his relations to the demon these days and God was growing tired of his prayers to her about him. She was too close to just show herself and tell him to knock it off and just go on with it, but that would destroy his progress. He needed to do this alone.

As for the demon, God agreed with him that the Polynesians needed a little nudge in the right direction. She left them to themselves to figure out their roles in Her plan. Besides, She needed to spend more time in heaven anyways. The angels following the first angel were getting on her nerves.


	4. Romans are smart, but the Greeks throw better parties I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ptolemaic Egypt is in its last days of Hellenistic reign and whilst the Greeks are a complete mess, they throw much better parties than the Romans. Cleopatra is involved.

It didn’t take them long to meet up again. Aziraphale travelled south in order to get some pointers about oceanic exploration, so that he could teach the northern population how to do it. Crawley was all too happy to help.

He missed the angel. It was a weird feeling, one he only knew from whenever he thought about heaven. Having him around was nice. A breath of fresh air between all the humans. However the angel was an exceptionally fast learner which meant that his stay with Crawley was limited, time wise. Not long after they were reunited, he travelled back north.

All Crawley heard from him after that was scattered across letters, one every few decades or so. They first relied on storks to get the letters across the world, until the animals had enough of them and refocused on other deliveries. After that, Crawley tried training Seagulls as postal birds; then albatrosses. The bird that turned out to be the best combination between dumb and useful was the pigeon. Doves were a good enough second pick whenever he was in a pinch, but they were a little too vain for Crawley’s taste.

What he didn’t know was that God, for the first time since the start, had picked up Her talent to create life in order to help them out. She created the pigeon for the sole reason of carrying letters across continents, a deed that, if modern Venetians knew about it, would make Her rather unpopular in their eyes.

Before long, Crawley grew tired of the sun and coconuts. He was craving a change, but not really. More than anything, he was wanting to go back to Egypt. It had easily been the best century of his life. He wasn’t sure how much of that was to be contributed to Egypt itself and not the angelic creature he was there with, but he travelled there regardless. What he found was a complete mess.

“So they really married their own siblings for 10 generations? No wonder it’s all gone to shit!” He exclaimed his thoughts to the current ruler.

Cleopatra looked unimpressed.

“Yes, they sure did. Now Rome’s on my heels and I gotta figure out how to explain to them why I am not like my ancestors.” She groaned, “they hate me because they think I’m an incest baby, but they would also hate me if they knew I’m half Egyptian.”

“There really is no winning with the Romans”, Crawley agreed. “Is it true that one of your ancestors split up with his wife, sending her the head of her own son as a birthday present?” He looked over to her with a sheepish expression. Did he really want the answer to that?

“Yes, that happened. She also went a step further and put it out in front of the Library of Alexandria. Didn’t go over well the whole thing.”

Crawley liked Cleopatra. She was smart, witty and knew how to play men. All things he had liked about women ever since his chat with Eve back when they were in the garden. Men, on the other side, he always grew tired of quickly. They thought about war too much for his liking, always so serious and constantly in denial of their feelings for their other male companions. Crawley was, at this point, over the whole gender-thing. He knew why, biologically, there had to be certain differences. But he was an occult being, no reproduction possible. He saw humans for what they were: Flesh vessels for souls. Some vessels had one pair of markers, others had a different one, quite a few of them had both. But at the end of the day they were just that, vessels. Therefore everything about the concept of patriarchy made his head hurt.

Cleopatra understood this. They spent their few days together talking about the missing logic behind men being the leaders. Cleo herself would have never gotten to be the ruler she now was, hadn’t it been for the complete incompetence of all of the rest of her remaining family.

They knew that their time together would end soon. Rome wasn’t going to give Egypt another chance and Cleo had to think of something to save her people from becoming a glorified colony. They deserved better. It wasn’t their fault, that her family had been one giant, royal fuck up for the last few centuries.

“When is Caesar scheduled to arrive?” He asked, popping a grape into his mouth. He still wasn’t convinced of human food, but there were a few exceptions. Mainly grapes and watermelons.

“Tomorrow. I expect him to get here by noon.” She looked about as unhappy as a person could. “Will you be here when he arrives?” Crawley heard the desperation in her voice. Cleo was a strong person, but she was also young and in need of someone in her corner.

“I would never leave you alone with them, you know that.” Crawley smiled, trying harder than usual to keep his split tongue hidden. Cleo knew that he wasn’t human. The second he met her she had this suspicion about him, one that was only pushed further when she caught him without his glasses. Thankfully for him, she shared his love for snakes and took a liking to him. She was the first human he didn’t have to influence in order for her to like him. So when Crawley said things like ‘I would never leave you alone with them’ and tried keeping his tongue in check, he didn’t do it to feign interest in her to get her to trust him. He did it because he cared. He really did.

That was the moment God came back from her hiatus in heaven. She felt something change. Don’t get Her wrong, She had always known how bad of a ‘real’ demon he was. If it truly would be Her plan to divide angels and demons into good and bad, both him and the angel Aziraphale would have been long gone. But She liked their incompetence. It made everything easier. It made the humans better.

Now, Crawley stopped being one of the stereotypical demons altogether. He cared for humanity, he felt love. God invented love, so She wasn’t surprised about that per se. After all, demons had the capability for love they just never used it. What surprised Her was that after four thousand years of making humanity better, a human had finally returned the favor. She knew that all of this was possible, but to see it happen was a different thing entirely.

Humanity had, for the very first time, managed to influence ethereal and occult beings. It wouldn’t be the last time; that, She was sure of. But She was happy that it was Crawley who got the first taste of it.

Cleopatra looked a little more content with her fate after Crawley’s reassurance. She still looked sad, but mixed into that emotion was so much else: hope, faith, melancholy, anger.

*

Caesar travelled with style, Crawley had to hand it to him. He sat in an open loge, carried along by horses. His company consisted of scarcely dressed men on foot and a few higher ranked soldiers complete with robes and pieces of golden armor. Cleopatra welcomed him with royal musicians framing his entry. From what Crawley could see, up on the balcony of the royal palace, he looked pleased.

Judging by what Cleo had told him, Crawley had expected someone older. Caesar was young. And quite the charmer; he could tell by the pleased expression on the man’s face.

You, my dear reader, might expect Caesar to be a lion-guy, much like Alexander. But in reality he was something different. Something worse.

Crawley could feel his aura, as he strutted down the stone hallway towards the throne room. Cleopatra was awaiting him anxiously, but the second Caesar and her looked eye to eye, she changed her posture. Her chin pointed forwards, in an arrogant fashion, her gaze was cold and lingering. Crawley’s eyes were hidden behind dark spectacles, yet Caesar made the impression on him, like he could look right through them. He had never been scared of a human before.

“My Queen”, Caesar bowed before Cleopatra.

“Consule Caesar.”

There was a dangerous silence in the air. Crawley took a look around the room. Behind Caesar, there were multiple men standing in absolute stillness. He had to keep himself from pulling a grimace.

“We should be discussing such things in private. But that’s for later. My senior adviser and I have to go over your statements first.” Cleopatra said, effectively pulling Crawley back into discussion. She gave him an encouraging look. “I’m sure you must be tired from your journey, my servants will escort you and your men to your quarters.”

Crawley blinked.

“I will send my consultant to be with you shortly, my queen.” Caesar smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Great”, Cleo spat out as soon as he was gone. Crawley was glad to have her back. “Another one of those Roman consultants, one of those nose-up-guys thinking Egypt is some sort of backwards country.”

They moved rooms, lounging on their sofas, waiting for the aforementioned consultant to show up. Crawley was planning on giving him a piece of his mind, should he be anything less than respectful towards Cleo and her reach.

In the middle of a heated discussion about dates (Cleo’s position: tasty; Crawleys position: gooey mess(; Gods position: one of Her best works)) there was an almost timid knock on one of the doors to their right.

“Come in”, Cleo said, already back in queen-position.

Crawley almost chocked on a grape when he saw who walked in.

God chuckled.

The blonde angel looked like he’d been with the Romans for a little too long. Crawley didn’t remember anything about that in the last letters. But then again why would the angel tell him about his every move?

He hadn’t spotted him yet, but once Aziraphale turned towards them, his face fell.

“Crawley?” He stuttered, “what are you doing here?”

“Same as you angel, I suppose?” He sat up and looked him up and down through his shades. “Rome suits you!”

The angel turned red and hid his midsection behind his arms. Crawley felt bad. He hadn’t meant to make the angel feel bad. He really did look good. A boyish grin on his face, rosy cheeks, the whole deal.

“Restaurants are a thing now”, the angel remarked, “I suppose I’ve been enjoying myself a little too much.”

“That’s not what I meant, you know it’s not what I meant. Take the compliment, angel.” He grinned, relieved when Aziraphale stopped hiding himself.

Cleopatra cleared her throat, reminding the two beings of her presence.

“Oh, my queen I am very sorry, I-“ Aziraphale bowed, but Cleo waved it off.

“You two know each other?” She looked at Crawley with a cocked eyebrow.

“Uh yeah”, Crawley said slowly, “we’ve been through some stuff together a while back.”

Technically not a lie, he thought.

Cleo pulled a mocking face, “right.” She turned to Aziraphale but was still addressing Crawley. There was curiosity in her voice. “Is he… like you?”

Aziraphale looked at Crawley with exasperation. “Did you tell her?”

“No!” Crawley stood up, looking back and forth between Cleo and Aziraphale. “He’s somewhat like me, but not quite.” He tried explaining to Cleopatra without giving too much away. “Sort of like a positive version of me.”

Aziraphale smiled.

“Bit bitchy, though, if you get him on the wrong day.”

Aziraphale didn’t smile anymore. He gave Crawley an indignant look and addressed the queen.

“Anyhoot, I’ve been sent to-“

“Anyhoot? Really angel?”

“Shut up Crawley. My queen, I’ve been sent by Caesar to discuss the changes he had in mind. But I really don’t think you should listen to him.”

Both the demon and the queen looked at Aziraphale in disbelieve.

Somewhere (everywhere), God was gasping.

“Ah, I know you weren’t really working for that twat!” Crawley reached for the grapes.

“You’re eating, too!” Aziraphale sounded way too delighted about that fact.

“He’s being a heathen about it.” Cleo grinned, “doesn’t like dates.”

“What?” Aziraphale looked like he was ready to deliver a two hour long love poem about dates, so Crawley stopped him before he could even start.

“I’m still developing my taste, okay. You two get off my back!” He turned to Cleo, “so what are we going to do about Caesar.

Cleo smiled, “let him be my problem for now.” She had a devilish grin on her face and Crawley was once again painfully reminded that she was barely older than a child. “So”, she gave Aziraphale a quick once over, “the nickname, angel, are you really an angel or…?” She trailed off, one eyebrow lifted suggestively on her young face.

Aziraphale chocked. Crawley cracked up.

“It’s quite the nickname, I agree”, he was still laughing. “Calm down angel, not the first time someone’s made that mistake.” He took off his glasses, much to the dismay of the angel.

“Crawley what in seven heavens are you doing?” He looked nervous. Crawley tried not take it personally. He knew the angel had a problem with his eyes, hell, he himself had a problem with them. Made him look much more shiftier than he felt.

“It’s alright angel, relax. She’s seen them.”

“I love them!” Cleo was Crawley’s favorite human ever.

“She’s got a soft spot for snakes”, Crawley clarified for the bewildered angel.

“I know what you are”, Cleo said, her tone more serious now.

Aziraphale and Crawley exchanged a look.

“I’ve read about it in some old scriptures. Stories passed down over generations. There was one about two men living longer than they should have, standing by the side of Alexander. A blonde man who liked to eat”, she looked at Aziraphale who instantly blushed again at the mention of food. “And a slim guy with a snake on his temple. I recognized the snake but I wasn’t sure until I saw your eyes.”

After she finished, she grinned. “I can’t believe it’s true.”

“Oh fuck me”, said Crawley.

“Watch your mouth”, said Aziraphale.

Fucking hell, thought God.

What? She never said She was perfect!

“We really have to be more careful around humans!” Aziraphale looked about ready to leave his earthly body and ascend right back up to heaven.

“Relax angel!” Crawley wasn’t sure how to react but he was sure that discorporation wasn’t the way to go.

“Relax!?” The angel had never been this out of it in four thousand years.

“Yeah, relax. I mean it was only a matter of time until someone noticed us and at least it’s one of the cool humans!”

“I have no idea what cool means, but thank you.” Cleo chimed in, still sounding chipper. It didn’t seem to faze her that the angel was having half a meltdown.

God understood Crawley, She liked her too.

“This is a disaster”, Aziraphale was pacing now. “I mean we have to destroy the scriptures, that’s for sure!”

“Look at this guy, ready to destroy originals. Since when are you so trigger-happy?” Crawley sat down again, looking at the angel with concern. “I mean seriously! What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is”, Aziraphale huffed, “that I was sent to Caesar by the other angels. I am already defying them by not influencing her to listen to him. If they figure out that we’ve been doing… well whatever it is we’re doing then they will smite us! You’ll see how helpful that big mouth of yours is when they throw you into holy water!”

Crawley lifted his eyebrows.

The angel sighed. “I’m sorry, dear. That was unnecessary of me. I’m just stressed. I didn’t think this assignment would play out like that.”

“S’fine angel.”

Both Cleo and God didn’t go without noticing the use of pet names. They both remained silent on the issue, but made their own deductions about it.


	5. Romans are smart, but the Greeks throw better parties II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second part of their egyptian adventure and it comes with a content warning, because it is a sad one.

That day, Aziraphale learned just how much of a mess the Greeks were. They walked around in open robes with seemingly no care in the world. Meanwhile the Egyptians worked hard and lived their lives in the shadow of their rulers. Aziraphale shook his head. He tried his best, not to think too much about the fact that he was, in part, responsible for this.

“What are you thinking about, angel?” Crawley strutted next to him in his usual slithering fashion. The demon fit right in with the messy street folk, his robe loosely hanging around him, glasses glistering in synch with the sinking sun to their left. Egypt suited him.

The angel refocused.

“I’m not thinking about anything.” He tried looking as neutral as possible.

“I know your thinking-face. You’re brooding.”

Aziraphale sighed loudly. “I am not brooding!” He stopped walking and the demon followed suit. “Where are we going Crawley?”

The demon grinned, “how long have you been with the Romans?” He ushered him to the side of the road, one hand on his arm. Aziraphale didn’t like being man-handled (or demon-handled rather) like that.

He shot the other being an annoyed look, freeing his arm from him with an quick gesture. “Half a century, give or take. Why?”

“Do you like them? Straight forward, go to war a lot, every day a new terrible idea for their government…”, the demon trailed off.

“Crawley what's your point?”

“They seem like your lot is all I’m saying.” He gestured to the sky. “Which makes me wonder why you are helping them.” The demon was in a good mood, Aziraphale on the other hand was just confused.

“As I told you, it wasn’t my choice to go to Rome. The decision was made for me.” He looked at his sandals. “I was quite happy in the north, you know? Didn’t really want to leave. Down here, people are more aggressive. They ask fewer questions.” He couldn’t muster up the courage to look at the demon, afraid he would still be smiling, internally making fun of his sappy nature. He was right and Aziraphale hated him a little bit for it. Rome really was a lot like heaven. He had thought it would be a comfort, but it wasn't.

“But you are not in Rome anymore, are you?”

Aziraphale felt the demon shift next to him. He was still looking at the ground. The street was, much like the rest of the city, messy. It was very important to the angel to be clean. He liked the feeling of control over himself and his surroundings. Egypt wasn’t very well controlled. His shoes were sinking into the ground; the hem of his robe was spattered with dirt.

He was uncomfortable here.

Still it was better than Rome. Egypt felt like an old friend, compared to the rising empire in the north. Rome was clean. In theory he should feel much happier there. But it wasn’t his kind of clean. He liked clutter, scrolls scattered across tables, wine stains on couches making places feel lived in, making them feel loved and used. Rome was clean, like heaven was clean. A blank slate, ready to be scripted and molded but not yet broken in. Aziraphale shouldn’t like Egypt more than Rome, but he did. Despite the dirt and the mess.

Yes he was uncomfortable here but it was just the right amount. It challenged him, like travelling with Alexander had. No. Not with Alexander, he’d been an idiot. Like travelling with Crawley had challenged him. Like the unclean was challenging him right now. Caesar played games with people, never spoke in a straight line and always had a back-up strategy. He didn’t like being asked questions and didn’t like asking them. Cleopatra wasn’t hiding behind passive aggressive humor, she was direct and witty. What did it say about him that after four thousand years on earth, he just now realized that. He finally looked back up to the demon, spotting his lingering eyes behind the glasses. In the shade they didn’t really hide his eyes, they just dimmed their glow. Aziraphale wondered if the demon knew how much he liked his eyes. He liked them too much, he thought. And that was not good. But then again, he wasn’t the same he was before. He’d been challenged so many times now, had done so many things he never thought he could.

“I’m not in Rome anymore”, he agreed with Crawley. The silence between them was filled.

The demon was smiling again. “Let me show you why that’s a good thing.”

*

By the time they reached the end of the street Aziraphale finally began to understand. The demon led him through the filth and the chaos. He didn’t object anymore to being pulled out of the way by him, but understood it as guidance. His heart swelled with a new found passion for this land. He understood Crawley now. The demon accepted the challenges, humans threw at him. In fact, he thrived in them.

“See that”, the demon stopped briefly to point towards a group of women, “that’s a reading group. They meet up every day to study scriptures, drink wine and talk about it. All women. Not a single man allowed in their circle.”

Aziraphale mustered them. There were quite a few female spaces in every culture he’d seen so far. Everywhere but Rome. There, women were either married, enslaved or committed to one of the temples. He didn’t agree with that. In fact it made him quite mad, when he thought about it.

“Look over there, see those statues?”

Aziraphale followed Crawley’s gaze and spotted what the demon was referring to. Statues of Gods, neither Greek nor Egyptian but a mixture of both. Their sockets were filled with writing in four different languages: Greek for the ruling class, Hieroglyphs for the priests, Arabic for the travelers and Demotic for the rest. In fact, everything was translated; every sign, every description, every prayer.

“They translate the holy words for the masses.” Crawley flinched when he said the word ‘holy’, but he looked happy. “Give the people access to what they believe.”

Aziraphale took a second to take in the world around him. Lavish trees flooded the open spaces with shadow. People were eating outside, drinking together on wooden stools outside of their houses. There was music and chatter and – life. The streets were alive.

They headed further up the street, “and that”, Crawley led him towards a bigger building to their left, “that is one of the many places people can go to if one year their field isn’t yielding enough crop to feed their family. The people who had more luck that year give a part of their corn to the people running the place. Next year it could be them who have bad luck, but they choose to help out others regardless.”

“This is remarkable, an act of solidarity.” The angel was fascinated; both by the humans and by the enthusiasm of the demon.

“Yes! This place, I’m telling you”, Crawley was looking at the angel now. The angel had rarely seen him so relaxed. “I know you”, he suddenly said.

“Right”, the angel scoffed, instantly regretting his harsh reaction.

“No really, I do. And I know that you think it is your fault, the whole Ptolemaic-disaster I mean.”

“If anything it would be _our_ fault.” Aziraphale took a deep breath. He looked around, trying to find something to glare at that wasn’t Crawley. “But you are not wrong. I was sent to Rome in order to help them putting an end to this sinner’s pit.”

“Sinner’s pit, really angel?”

“Gabriel’s words not mine.”

“Of course they are.”

“Are they wrong, though? The other angels I mean. Look around! You remember how the old Greeks used to be? Orderly, clean, modern. We left this part of the world alone and now I’m supposed to help fix the mistakes we made.”

“We didn’t do anything wrong!” The demon was practically jumping. Aziraphale wondered where the other being was getting all that energy from. “Humans are humans! They would’ve run this place to the ground regardless, because it was time. But what we did do was this!” He pointed to the statues. “We caused this! We made them develop a new culture. I’ve never seen anything like it, angel. Two religious systems combined, two different kinds of people united as one. Translating things usually reserved for the higher classes. The few Greeks you see passing by, they are not what Egypt is about. They are leftovers who refused to go with the change. After ten generations of trying to breed pure royal blood, the Greeks have lost their senses, but their people didn’t. They have a queen that’s equal parts Greek and Egyptian. They help each other out. They marry each other, building new dynasties on top of the bones of people who stood against change. I have never seen anything like it.”

Aziraphale listened to the words of the demon and recognized them as what they were: A love letter to humanity.

“Why are you telling me all this?” He wished he could agree with him. He really did. But his orders told him otherwise, he was not supposed to relish in the lovable chaos humanity was. He was supposed to guide them the other way. The right way.

“Because I want you to understand that this place isn’t a mistake. We can’t let the Romans tear it apart like they do with everything else.”

“I agree with you, that’s why I wanted to come here personally, to help the queen. To guide her!”

“Humans don’t need guidance all the time. They didn’t lose their path, angel. They simply found a better route!”

Aziraphale bit the inside of his cheek, biding for more time before he had to answer. It was his job to guide them. That’s why he was on this planet for.

“If they don’t need guidance then what is my function, Crawley?”

“ _Our_ function, angel. I’m right there with you, same problem different side. If they don’t need your influence to do good, imagine how easy doing bad things comes to them.”

They stood on the side of the busy street, engulfed in the life that was oozing out of the city.

“You know, Rome has been under angelic influence for a long time. The streets are full of life there, too.” Aziraphale didn’t like the Romans, but he liked their way of life. It was so luxurious, lavish one might even say.

“I’ve been to Rome, angel.” Crawley laid his head back and closed his eyes. Aziraphale averted his gaze from him. “The people rely on money and influence there. People can either feed themselves or are left to figure it out alone. This place is different.”

“Politics”, the angel said.

“Politics”, Crawley agreed.

“The Romans are smart”, Aziraphale let his eyes wander around the place Crawley loved to much.

“You know, I haven’t been here long.” Crawley was looking at him, the angel could feel it. “But what I saw in that short time, it’s unparalleled to anything else. I’ve also learned something very important.” He paused for dramatic effect. Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “The Romans are smart, but the Greeks throw much better parties.”

*

He was right about that, God thought as She watched the evening unfold.

Cleopatra was hosting an event to celebrate Caesars arrival. The consul did his best to charm the queen. Aziraphale sat on a bench behind him feeling even more conflicted than when he’d first gotten his mission. Crawley made his life harder once more. Challenges, the angel reminded himself.

“I have to say”, Caesar was laying on one of the sofas around the balcony atop the atrium. There was music coming from the level below them as well as other miscellaneous party-noise. “You, my queen, look much more exotic than I imagined.”

All three non-humans present, that being Aziraphale, Crawley and God, rolled their eyes. Cleopatra remained her posture, but Aziraphale could read in her aura how much she disliked being in the consuls presence.

“And I must say that your ideas for Egypt are subpar.”

From the corner of his eyes, Aziraphale could see Crawley smirk.

“Subpar?” The consul didn’t let his emotions show. Even Aziraphale had a hard time figuring him out. He could sense that the man had a short fuse. Cleopatra had to be careful.

“Yes. Quite, I’m afraid.” A dangerous smile danced around her lips.

Aziraphale did not like the tension that was lingering between the humans. He never cared for politics. Humans had started being awful towards each other only a few generations in. Who controlled the food, who held the cattle, who was vital for survival and who wasn’t. By now it had gotten worse. Then small things posessed bigger meaning now, like gold and silver. There was invasions, war, tactics grew more advanced – no more showing up with the bigger army and talk for a few minutes.

Crawley was watching the humans talk, his glasses successfully shielding Aziraphale from his expressive eyes, but the angel knew how he felt. Cleopatra would take the deal, they both knew that. She would get her people the best she could and it would cost her everything.

This was the way of humankind.

He’d first seen it unravel in Africa. War was born there, same as humanity. When the people left for other places it travelled with them. China had been a mess, still was if he was honest with himself, Southern Asia followed. War moved into the water the second humans did; South America, North America, then the pacific realm. The world was infected and he hadn’t been successful in preventing any of it. Alexander had worked out, more or less, but that was different. Humans were even more stubborn now and that meant something.

As he watched this young woman be kind, wise and altogether as wonderful as she could be, he prayed for her.

God had no answer to his prayers. She avoided them, sad about humanity but at the same time strangely content with it. War was a human condition. They acted by themselves and that was the plan, every retour they took on their way was unfortunate, but the plan was unfolding. There was always something good left in them, no matter their struggles.

Crawley and Aziraphale knew that Cleopatra’s life wouldn’t be easy the second they each met her for the first time. They’d seen it a thousand times by now. This however was the first time they both grieved over a human life. Yet another thing Cleopatra taught them.

God wasn’t sure She could grief with them.

*

They sat on the plaza with a good view of the statues, reminding them of the reason why they were here.

“She’s going with him”, Crawley said, his voice thick with emotions he couldn’t quite figure out yet. “Said her goodbyes to me this morning.”

The two had left together the previous night, neither of them being able to enjoy the infamous greek party.

“You got any idea where you’re headed next?” The angel kept his eyes on the statues.

“I’m not sure.”

“Me neither, maybe I’m going back north.”

“I mean”, the demon clenched his jaw, “I’m not sure I’m headed anywhere next.”

“Oh.”

Crawley had no idea what the angel was thinking. He thought he understood him before, but now he realized that he had no idea. Cleopatra was the first human he loved. Seeing her suffer made every part of him hurt. He couldn’t imagine loving all of humanity. The pain must be unbearable.

“I wanted to thank you”, the angels words were spoken carefully.

Crawley froze.

“I haven’t been the best angel lately.” Aziraphale knew that Crawley was listening and continued on. “Truth be told, I was glad when they sent me somewhere with a purpose. Because I feel like I’m experiencing something bad.” He wrang his hands. The angel only did that when he was anxious. Crawley waited.

“I fear that I’ve fallen out of love with humanity.” Aziraphale laughed nervously. “Bit by bit, small steps, but it’s been happening ever since China.”

Crawley looked at the angel, unsure of what to say to him. He was glad about his glasses. Aziraphale seemed fine to him, sad, but fine. The demon felt content within the angel’s words which was strange. He’d expected a revelation like that to leave him in pieces, but it didn’t. ‘Ever since China’, the words echoed in his ears. China had been a long time ago.

“When I came down here I wasn’t sure what to do. Follow my orders or do what I believe to be right, even if it doesn’t do anything. The poor girl is doomed either way.”

“Oh angel”, Crawley began, but Aziraphale gestured him to stop. He didn’t have any idea how to end the sentence anyways. How does one comfort an angel? A being made to comfort others.

(God felt the need to remark that whilst it was indeed the job of angels to be there for humanity, their purpose wasn’t to comfort them. Angels had been more of an experiment in her creative process.)

“But you showed me the progress they are making. The positive parts of the mess they make. Thank you for that.” He was breathing again. Crawley hadn’t even noticed him stop.

“Humankind is terrible”, he remarked after a few minutes of processing. “I never cared for humans, you know. I cared for the things they did, but not for their lives. I can’t say that’s true anymore.” The angel had been honest with him and Crawley decided to take a risk and return the favor. “I care for her. So much that I want to intervene and stop everything.”

“But you’re not going to.”

“No, I’m not. If we had decided to stay here, three hundred years ago, we could have prevented this kingdom from falling apart. But they wouldn’t be where they are now. The world would be just as bad, only in different ways.” He swallowed his pride. “I wouldn’t be the same either, because I would have never seen this.”

“You’re right. Bad things need to happen. Doesn’t make them any less terrifying, though.”

No, God thought. It doesn’t. It doesn’t. She kept an eye on Cleopatra during her short life, wondering how this young woman could be so content with her fate, unknowing of the impact she was having on the world and it’s two inhuman travelers. 


	6. The biggest city in the world I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crawley and Aziraphale are on what one could call a holiday. They accidentally put a city in Mesoamerica on its path to becoming the biggest city in the world.

Teotihuacán had been one of Crawley’s favorite places ever since humans started settling there a little less than 600 years ago. The terraces, used for farming, reflected the sunlight up the mellow mountains surrounding the city. Every surface was dripping in lavish green colors; waterfalls were running through the valley and the sound of buzzing insects roaming about the place hummed in his ears.

He loved the moment, right after one crossed the mountains, when the valley opened up in front and revealed the sheer beauty of this world. He had to give it to God, this place was exceptional.

God agreed. Mesoamerica in general had been one of Her best works, really.

It was for those reasons, Crawley’s admiration for the landscape and the local culture, that he decided to bring Aziraphale.

They didn’t part after Egypt. They never discussed this either, it came without much of a question. Aziraphale showed him his work in the north and was, as his angelic nature dictated, disappointed to see the Norsemen use their newly found knowledge to raid other parts of the land. They stayed regardless, only for a few decades mind you. Aziraphale worked with the people to develop their religious efforts and Crawley started a small battalion of female fighters that went on to be known for their efficiency. He’d always liked the women best, after all.

But the north was cold and didn’t help them much in their efforts to move on. Crawley could see it in the angel, it wasn’t a nice thing. He did his work, shaped humanity like he had done the past millennia, but there was a little less mischief behind his eyes. He always had fun telling humans their Gods looked like animals in order to make them treat God’s other creatures better, but not this time. It was this specific moment that Crawley knew they had to leave.

It felt right to take the angel to one of his favorite spots. The valley was thriving. Probably because none of them had been here in half a millennia, he thought, chuckling to himself. Competence with human affairs wasn’t either of their best quality. Making them do stupid stuff, though, that they could manage.

He thought about all that as they made their passage towards the settlement. Aziraphale wanted to miracle their way there, but he had insisted they’d quick travel further north and take the more traditional route south.

It was worth it.

God felt like She had done good, watching Aziraphale take in the hills She’d formed Herself. Well, to be fair, the humans added the pretty terraces and the charming little farms left and right. But She had done the mountains, the springs of the rivers, the steps of the hills, the forest around the valley. Felt like a lifetime ago. She knew this phrase applied more to humans than Herself, but She liked it good enough.

The angel took in the beauty that surrounded him, carrying a smile wider than Crawley had seen in the past 35 years. He felt good about that. Somewhere on the timeline between Alexander and Cleo he’d begun to accept the fact that he cared for the angel. He wouldn’t want to be alone in eternity and for an ethereal being, Aziraphale really knew how to hold his liquor. He’d almost go as far as describing it a friendship, but caring for someone and being friends with them were two different things. Two kinds of commitment, of understanding. He was glad the angel was happy, but a friendship would be too much of a term for the both of them. But four thousand years were four thousand years and as much as he denied it, one could simply not grow fond of a companion after all that time. Even if that companion was a sworn enemy. He laughed.

“What are you so happy about?” The angel sat next to him on their passage and pretended to read one of the scrolls Crawley had taken from a library in Assyria just before it was destroyed by the army of Ptolemy IV. He’d taken a lot of scrolls over the centuries, pages, scriptures and other stuff – anything with writing on it. Whenever he knew that someone would destroy them, he took them. Not all of them, of course, but just a few. Mostly because he didn’t want to see them destroyed, but also because the angel had taken to reading over time (after the damn humans finally took to his idea of papyrus and ink) and enjoyed reading about their findings, tracing their (often wildly inaccurate) maps with his fingers and whispering to himself in an angry tone about their written misconducts. They both enjoyed poetry, though.

“Oh you know, angel”, he rearranged his glasses and smiled, “just excited to be back.”

“Have you been here, after the first settlers I mean?” Aziraphale was talking about the visit Crawley had described in one of his letters. He’d been here a few times after, though. He liked visiting without doing anything. No meddling, no interruption. Just letting them do their thing, drink their local alcohol and sit outside to marvel at their constructions, language and art. He had a soft spot for art. Not influencing humans for once, not following a plan felt good.

“I visited, once or twice, but never for long. After the first visit I felt like the right thing to just let them be.”

“The right thing huh?” The angel gave him an amused look, “never knew you cared for that kind of stuff.”

“You know what I mean! Don’t make me out to be following morals of any sorts, I was busy with Hawaii at the time, the Polynesians had just discovered it and it had been a whole mess. I just like it here.”

“Tell me more about the people here”, the angel rolled up his reading material and looked at Crawley with genuine interest. “I haven’t been here in forever, last time they were still only passing through.”

“Sure”, Crawley replied, “They started some 600 years ago, took them forever but on my third visit or so they had set up the now inner city and were farming these”, he pointed to the left of them, “hills right over there. They moved down into the valley over time, using the springs to expand their farming and setting up a good foundation for more housing. In the last few years they have grown quite a bit.”

“Have you been here after we went north?” Aziraphale eyes the demon curiously.

“Yeah, when I did that tour with the women a couple years back. I was here for a weekend, not more. Just wanted to check up on them.”

“What did you find?”

“Oh they developed fine, it was, and in many ways still is, a true melting pot of people. Several languages, ethnicities like Totonacan, Mixe-Zoquen and Otomi; lots of different religions, too. You know the city Cuicuilco?”

“Yes, I’ve been there lots about a thousand years ago or so! It was just a little further down south, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah that one.” Crawley suppressed a smile. “Anyways, they were rivals essentially. Mostly about petty stuff, you know what I mean. Both were center points for trade between the southern and northern continents. But then”, he made a crude gesture with his hands to simulate an explosion, “one of these great big volcano-thingies went up right next to Cuicuilco and the whole farming business wasn’t all that lucrative anymore. People lost their houses, their land, their cattle – so they moved up here.”

“What are those levels about?” The angel nodded in the direction of the northern city, the closer they came, the more about the city they could make out. It looked bigger than Crawley remembered.

He looked in the direction the angel was referring to and laughed, he liked knowing more about something than Aziraphale. “They have three stages of class here, high elites, intermediate elites and laboring class. You can tell by the building structures and the wall art, I’ll show you once we’re there. But they’re not really separated into the levels. It’s way more mixed up than you would imagine. The north is the only place where they really are on different levels because they developed upwards when the volcano erupted and a flood of people came here. They gave them the valley and moved older residents higher up. The rest is mostly mixed together or divided by function.” He shuffled closer to the angel to show him more directly what he meant. “Look over there, that’s the farmers. They live on the outskirts because they work the land there. Further inward, these little huts next to the river over there, live the craftspeople. Those who need the river stay in those huts, the rest are scattered across apartments throughout the city in some sort of neighborhood centers. This way you have everything you need only a short distance away at all times. The craftspeople are the heart of the city, really. They come from all over Mesoamerica to work here and get paid a good amount, not to forget the housing they are provided, to stay and make this city better. The more special goods you can offer your people, the better they like it here.”

“Makes sense”, the angel shifted and Crawley leaned back immediately to his former position. He cleared his throat.

“Trade is a big thing, too. People come here not only to trade their goods, but to trade in their talents. Travelling painters, builders, musicians, performance artists, even guys who go around offering their knowledge to train soldiers and build the military.”

“You say the people don’t live separate, but I can see the walls.” Aziraphale was studying the city closely.

“That’s not a class thing, though. It’s the neighborhoods. The separation makes it, so the smaller structures within the city develop properly. There are districts you will love. Most of the producing is left to the women; the men are often builders and such. One of the rivers hosts a neighborhood where people make nets, another river has a lot of clay and is home to mostly pottery-related things. But the one you’re really going to like is the one with the painters. It consists of mostly women, much like the pottery business, and over the years they have painted every inch of every house with some intricate design. The clothes are made in the same fashion, designed, made and decorated. They are close to the trading district, mostly because the traders bring in lots of materials and textiles for them to work with.”

“You did always like the women better”, Aziraphale remarked with a smirk.

“Ah you know how it is, me and Eve go way back.” Crawley grinned, Aziraphale didn’t anymore.

“Yes I remember your little stunt.” He turned away from Crawley but the demon knew he wasn’t actually mad.

“What in Hers name are those people doing there?”

Crawley was pulled from his thoughts when he looked in the direction Aziraphale was pointing at and saw the people, too. There were a lot of them, all just outside the proper city. Most of them were standing on farming land, making the farmers angry, but they didn’t seem to care.

“I have no idea”, he said truthfully. “Let’s find out.”

*

Crawley hopped off their wagon and gave the driver and the alpacas that had brought them there a small wave. One of the alpacas immediately started searching the ground for something to eat. He smiled briefly, watching the animal for a second longer before turning to the people that now were close enough for him to properly assess them. He didn’t mind the beautiful fields around them anymore, his attention primarily focused on the issue at hand. He registered Aziraphale behind him, clumsily getting out of their carriage to join him.

“Hello everybody”, he directed his greeting to all of them but only a small amount of people turned around. “What’s going on?” One of the people that cared enough to acknowledge his presence took a few hesitant steps towards him.

“We’re not allowed into the city”, he basically spat the words out.

“Oh, hello there good sir”, Aziraphale had caught up and was trying to hide his shaky breath with a wide smile.

“You guys from around here? What happened?” Crawley looked around and took in the small sea of people. There must’ve been at least a few hundred of them, possibly even more.

“We came from the south, there was a flood. Took us weeks to get here. We were promised refuge and help and now they can’t fit us in.”

“That’s not very nice”, the angel remarked.

“No it isn’t.” Crawley gestured to the angel to follow him. They made their way through the masses and entered the inner city. After the military let them through, a small miracle Aziraphale handled, they experienced whiplash from the sudden change of scenery. It was much quieter all of a sudden, people were focused on doing their daily business; nobody gave the people just outside the city much thought.

“Okay, now we just have to find the people responsible and influence them to let those people in.” Aziraphale was so busy looking around when he said that, he almost didn’t see Crawley shake his head.

“No, angel.” The demon could smell the dispute they were about to have. But he had to do this right. “We’re not going to influence anyone while we’re here. That’s how I’ve kept it all this time.”

Aziraphale turned around, a hurt expression on his face. “But why?”

“Because”, he pinched the bridge of his nose, “people have to make their own mistakes. Remember what good it did them when we left them. Every time we go, they fuck shit up and then they make it better.”

“But what about all those things you talked about on our way here? The whole lecture you gave me about mixing cultures and growing due to natural disasters in other cities?” The angel still looked hurt. Like he didn’t expect it from Crawley, a literal demon mind you, to act like this.

“Whenever we try to influence things in a big way things go wrong. This isn’t one person, angel. This could result in the city getting destroyed!”

“How? Tell me how exactly could it destroy the city? If anything it would make it better!”

“You don’t know that! A few generations down the line it could change everything!”

“Or nothing!”

“That’s my point! It’s not up to us to make their decisions without knowing the outcome. We are just as clueless as them but we pretend to be all-knowing, just because we have some experience with humanity. That doesn’t mean we know what’s best for them!” Crawley was at this point expressing his point more with his hands than his words.

Aziraphale was standing a short distance away, confused and angry at him.

“I’m going to the apartment I got, yours is just down the street from it. Please, angel, just come with me. We can fight all we want but not here, not now.”

The angel followed him reluctantly. He knew that this wasn’t over.


	7. A fun time in Norte-Chico

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale is conflicted about Teotihuacán. He reminds himself of his biggest failure in order to figure out if he should intervene or not.
> 
> [This is one of two flashback chapters between 'The biggest city in the world' I, II and III.]

Two thousand years after the start, God watched a lonely angel stumble across Her planet. One river civilization to another, he brought the gifts of farming, fishing and building, of handiwork, trade and cooking. Every time he revisited a place he’d been to before he saw them use his gifts. They grew, developed and made the land their own. The angel wasn’t happy, but he was content. He was doing Her work after all.

Unfortunately, the other angels had their own agenda. Even more unfortunately, Aziraphale didn’t know about this. In his understanding, the other angels followed Her plan. Even if he had known, God was sure that he wouldn’t have done anything about it back then. He was trained to follow orders and disrupting the kind of training all angels received took time.

It was two thousand years after the start, when Aziraphale came to Norte-Chico. He’d heard rumors about the growing population and the relative wealth of the people there and decided to lend a hand to the people. He was met with hospitality and open minds.

God watched him; Her metaphorical eyes never weary of his everlasting pursuit.

It was a hot day. So hot in fact, that Aziraphale found himself restless, stirring around in his quarters unsure of what to do about his day. The sun had risen mere hours ago and was already burning down with as much intensity as it could. Aziraphale wondered if he would get anything done today. He could make his way to the temples and look at the progress of the newer builds. That had been the plan.

He left his quarters, but not to go to the temples.

Instead he strolled around the market, wasting his time looking around. Well, it wasn’t really wasting time, seeing as he was an immortal being, but it sure felt like it. God knew the feeling too well.

Flies were buzzing around the hanged meats and fruit stands, the smell of bread filled the air and a drink Aziraphale would later learn to call beer was poured with generosity.

(God would like to make sure the dear readers know that this ‘beer’ wasn’t really beer, since Germans weren’t a thing yet. Before their scientific approach to the alcoholic beverage, there weren’t any limitations on the matter and anything, and She means anything, could be called beer. However it was a very important step in human evolution, since water for the longest time wasn’t all that drinkable. The people figured out that fermentation and proofing something in water made said water less likely to have harmful bacteria in it. The result – wine and beer – made for a relatively safe source of water and soon became the main drink. The alcohol percentage was, as for lackluster procedures, very slim. There was of course stronger alcohol, especially the wine department, but it was used and kept separately from the regular drinking alcohol.)

Aziraphale sat down near the market, a bit of lunch prepared next to him, and watched the humans mingle. It was his favorite past time these days. To him they were like ants, or bees perhaps; wasps even. Intelligent creatures that, once they were provided with the right plan, were able to build complex infrastructures, hierarchies, settlements that went on to become cities. He loved them, but he wasn’t always sure he loved their ways.

After lunch he moved on, making his way to the shore. The ocean greeted him with familiarity. The angel had helped in its creation and they’d been friends ever since. He could read its stories in the white foam on the waves, settle it when it was aggravated or too excited and appease it when it was angry or disappointed. Today was a calm day for the ocean. It was running across the edge of land in a peaceful manner, shifting around the rocks almost as if it was but a playful game.

The angel loved the coast. He felt best about himself when he was near water. He always came back to it. Be it because of the way one could look into the distance without anything between, the sounds of waves softly licking over land and stone alike or crashing against cliffs, the protruding shells amongst the warm sand, or all of it combined – still, it was mostly the air that made him come back. Much of heat was taken away by the soft breeze, smelling of algae and salt. Yes, the angel loved the coast and God perfectly understood why.

Shortly after he’d settled once again, his feet buried in the hot sand, the angel noticed something odd. There were many fisher boats around the more stonier passages of the beach; lots of nets and all sorts of traps, too. But it wasn’t as busy as usual. The night boats came back in the early hours of the morning and went out again by midday, there were people around the cliffs searching for mussels and clams and women gathered by the coast to have a chat and repair the nets before their men were sent out again to catch more fish. But today was quiet; barely anyone around the boats, nobody caring for the nets and no people with baskets full of shellfish.

He tried ignoring the emptiness and instead enjoy the seldom peace and quiet, but he couldn’t. Sooner then he’d planned, he was on his feet again, ready to figure out what was going on. Aziraphale patted the sand off his clothes and had a look around.

“Truly curious”, he mumbled under his breath.

A woman tending to one of the fisher boats caught his attention.

“Excuse me”, he smiled apologetically, not yet having anything more of a grasp of their language. His usual charm was put down a notch by this but he was sure they would understand each other just fine.

“Yes?” The woman looked up from her work. She was busy securing the boat for the sea by putting tree resin on the outer wood.

“I was just wondering why it is, that there are so little people out today. Did the night boats not yet come back?”

The woman gave him an unimpressed look, waving towards the boats around them. “Yes they did, they are right here.” She resumed her work. “They just didn’t bring anything with them.”

Aziraphale felt foolish at her first remark and curious at her second. “How do you mean?”

“I mean the fish”, the woman said, “they didn’t bring any fish.”

Maybe it was the language gap, maybe it was her practicality. But Aziraphale still didn’t understand. “Why?” He asked.

She sighted, finally stopping her work to meet his eyes again. “What I mean, stranger, is that there isn’t any fish to bring. They came back with empty nets.”

*

The angel felt flustered, standing among the higher class whilst the working people were gathering around them. It had been almost two weeks without much success fishing, and the people weren’t happy about the way this was handled. Norte-Chico survived by fishing. The people were farming the land, sure. There were feasible hunting grounds around them, mostly in the mountains, but it wasn’t enough. Fish was what made the wheels spin. It was part of their culture, a way to feed the many people that came here looking for a better life. It was the pull Norte-Chico had, that other settlements didn’t. The higher class didn’t understand this. Aziraphale knew that he was standing on the wrong side of the plaza.

“Fish prices are too high!” One man said loudly.

“I would go back down south, if I wanted to be a farmer.” Another said.

“Yeah, there isn’t enough land here for all of us”, a woman exclaimed, “and the mountains would fall over by the weight of the alpacas if we all decided to start a herd.”

“Quiet!” A man, one of the higher class, stepped forward and two more shushed away the people around him, allowing him to speak with authority. “We will find new fishing grounds!” He said, his tone steady.

“There are no more fishing grounds near the shore”, someone said.

“We exhausted all of them”, another chimed in.

“The gods”, another man from the higher class spoke up, staying on his place with the others, looking around the plaza with a hint of nervousness in his eyes, “are angry with us. There is no such thing as exhausted fishing grounds. These are simply lies told by the unfaithful, the sinning.”

What a load of horseshit, God thought.

She was watching with rising anger, as She was made responsible for their mistakes. Something that happened a lot, as of late.

Aziraphale had a similar train of thought, though he mostly focused on the fact that all of the men standing there, telling the good people about faith and sin, should really hold their tongue. He’s been invited to some of their parties, he knew what they were doing when they thought no one was watching. Judgment wasn’t something he held dear, but it was quite funny how the people preaching about sin were mostly those who should receive such preaching. He personally didn’t mind their doings, but why make rules about faith, only to break them right away.

Power, he stopped himself from grimacing. Right, politics were a thing now and keeping people under control was best done by inventing a bunch of rules and putting oneself in the position to act as their enforcer.

He watched the situation unfold, a mixture of harsh words and quasi-religious mantras. The gathering ended, but the issue remained. Animals were slaughtered for offerings, candles were lit, prayers were spoken – but the ocean was overfished. Aziraphale read on its waves about the migration of its inhabitants. After all, fish weren’t stupid. They realized where it was safe to breed and where it was not.

Aziraphale wanted to help, but he didn’t know how. He was following more of an idea than a plan, when he decided to take action. He sat in his quarters watching the sun rise. He was going to the temples today, speak with the higher ups there, convince or influence them to see the truth. Sent out bigger boats to cover more ground and find the new breeding grounds for the fish. He was gonna do all that and hope it would work.

A fluttering sound startled him.

“Aziraphale”, the voice was oily and immediately put a pounding headache behind his eyes. He hesitantly turned around.

“Gabriel, what an… unexpected pleasure to see you.” His smile was frozen on his face.

Gabriel was an angel much higher in authority than Aziraphale ever had been. His vessel fit his demeanor. It was tall, with short dark hair and light skin. Its eyes were of a pale purple, a color Aziraphale had never liked. Both, the angel and his vessel, looked and felt unpleasant. A warning of what was to come, if one wished to challenge him.

“The pleasure is all mine”, the other angel forced a toothy smile that only lasted a second.

“What brings you here”, Aziraphale tried his best not to stutter. His quarters were filled with reasons to demote him. There was food, musical instruments and all other sorts of entertainment that were frowned upon by the other angels.

“What I can’t check in with a old friend?” Gabriel’s tone was chipper, but there was something dark behind his words.

“You are most welcome here anytime, of course. But I do wonder if there is a reason behind your visit other than exchanging pleasantries.”

“We haven’t really done that, have we? Exchanged”, he stopped, trying to imitate the word Aziraphale just said, “pleasantries.”

“No I suppose not. But really, you didn’t just come here to ask me how I am, have you?”

“No.” Gabriel acted like Aziraphales quarters were filled with dirt. He looked around suspiciously, careful where he stepped. “I am here because we need you somewhere else. A mission, if you will.”

“A mission from God?” Aziraphale almost gasped, there hadn’t been direct contact to her since Eden.

“If you will”, he grinned again.

That was a no. Aziraphale was disappointed.

“We need you in Babylonia.” The other angel roamed around Aziraphales quarters, looking at his earthly belongings with disgust.

Aziraphale was frozen. Babylonia? He’d not been to Babylonia in… too many years to count. What would the angels objective there be?

“Why?” He asked carefully.

“You ask too many questions, Aziraphale.” Gabriel’s words were lingering in the room, their implied meaning was dangerous.

“I don’t question your command”, the angel replied quickly, hoping God would forgive him this lie (She did), “but I have to know what my orders contain.”

Gabriel stayed silent for a moment. A calm before the storm, if you will. “The humans are developing something they call an alphabet. The proto-sinaitic alphabet, to be precise. But they are always close, yet never quite there. Their worship is lacking, they need this writing. We need them to finish it and adapt it.”

“And I am your choice for this? Wouldn’t Michael be a much better-“ Aziraphale couldn’t finish his sentence. Gabriel’s vessel grew, his wings pressing against the fragile walls surrounding them.

“Michael is far too important, Aziraphale. You know this, why are you defying orders? You dare question me and my authority?”

“No, no of course not!” Aziraphale was afraid and frankly, so was God. She was also severely pissed off.

“Then why are you not already on your way there?”

“The people here, they need assistance.” Aziraphale was talking to the floor beneath his feet. He could not muster up the courage to look at his supervisor.

“Oh, I’m sorry? Am I interrupting your fun time in Norte-Chico?” Gabriel was back to his regular appearance, Aziraphale could tell by his voice, but he was still dangerous. “Humans always need help, you can’t be everywhere at once. We need you in Babylonia now, not later. Go there, fullfill your duties to us. Then you can return to your pathetic humanoid life here and continue being a disgrace. Go there now, or you will never see humanity again, I will make sure of that.”

When Aziraphale looked up, Gabriel was gone.

*

The Babylonians were quick to learn, but not quick enough. Every day Aziraphale spent there, he was plagued. He used his days well, educating and helping them as good as he could, but his nights were filled with emptiness. Something he could only fill by thinking. A hobby, he had been taught, not fit for obedient angels.

God was bored. She didn’t enjoy the days of nothingness. Nor did She enjoy the nights of prayer directed to Her. It was a tricky situation. See, Her original game plan for this time had been to go into hiatus, but She found Herself incapable leaving the angel. Sure, She could always check in with the demon, he was usually up to something fun, but the demon was still in China at the time and She had grown tired of the east after watching him and Aziraphale roam these lands for centuries.

So She stayed and listened to him, hoping he would know. She could not reveal Herself and let him know that his questions didn’t make him less of an angel. But She felt it appropriate that, if She couldn’t ease this pain, She at least had to endure it.

God wasn’t the only one thinking about China during Aziraphales stay in Babylonia. The angel found himself wondering almost every night. He knew better, than to say his thoughts out loud of course, but in his mind, many things were moving around. He’d been questioning the other angels for a while, even though it was forbidden. His problem was that he could question, so why was it wrong? If he could do it, why would God forbid him to do so? As a test? Surely, if that were the case, he’d fallen a long time ago. Watching the humans form societies he’d seen heaven in them a thousand times: hierarchies, means to make others comply, torture if they don’t. In many ways, human society and heaven were much closer than the other angels would ever admit.

All this to ask: Who did he serve? God? The angels? The humans? Did he serve God by helping the humans or by doing what the other angels wanted him to do?

He knew he could never openly defy heaven, they would punish him gravely. Gabriel wasn’t kidding when he said that Aziraphale would never see the earth again. Yet he wondered, he asked, he questioned.

But then he thought about China. It was his biggest regret to this day. No matter what he did, he did it wrong. Humans either didn’t listen or they did and that made it somehow worse. He felt like he knew what was best for them, but he didn’t.

He managed to feel almost content with his fate, almost.

It took over two centuries for him to leave Babylonia again. Gabriel made sure of that. He prohibited Aziraphale from leaving, knowing full well, that this meant the suffering of the other.

Aziraphale knew that something must’ve happened when he received word that he could leave. It had been so long, he was half-sure Gabriel would keep him there forever. So, either the angel had lost interest or something bad had happened and he was willing to bet half his wings that it was the latter.

He was right.

This time Norte-Chico greeted him with nothing more than dust and broken stone. The city laid there, abandoned of all. Life was nowhere to be found, except under the ruins, where small animals gathered in search of shadowy mercy from the sun.

Aziraphale came to the shore, looking at the water for a long time. The sun was still burning, the sand was still scorching, the oceans waves were still whispering. He could almost imagine it was the day he found out about the missing fish. The beach had been barren that day, too. But there were no boats left, no traces of life, really, except for a few planks sticking out the sand, eaten by the water licking at them every at every flood.

China had shown him that he didn’t know what was best for humanity. It had truly been his biggest regret. Until now. Seeing the empty streets, the hollow carcasses of what had once been a lively city, it made him realize that he might not know what was best, but it was his duty to try anyways. He had a new regret, and it was rooted in his inaction.

*

Aziraphale remembered his time in Norte-Chico well. The early city hadn’t been far from where Teotihuacán was now. A few days traditional travel, a week at most. But it had been different. No art, only function. Even their temples had been bleak. They did however work with textiles, a tradition now deeply rooted in South- and Mesoamerican culture. The angel saw Norte-Chico every time he passed a textile merchant on the street.

The ruin among the three rivers, that’s what the people from Teotihuacán called Norte-Chico now.

He had to do something, the angel thought. Even if that meant Crawley would be mad at him. He couldn’t bear to think of the demon being angry with him, but he had learned his lesson about inaction two thousand years ago. Aziraphale knew the risk and he was willing to take it. It would cost him greatly, but he was an angel and he had to serve humanity in the only way he knew: try his best.


	8. The biggest city in the world II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fight happens.
> 
> (One of two chapters to be released today. I apologize for my absence, but everything is getting a little much these days. The second chapter is longer than this one!)

Aziraphale liked his place. It was in one of the bigger apartment buildings in their neighborhood and was, much like everything else there, covered in intricate art, murals and calligraphy. Crawley had been right, he loved this part of the city.

The angel had developed to be a man (being) of culture. He liked good food, wine, music, the fine arts, theater and literature. This place was perfect. It housed all the things he enjoyed.

Crawley’s apartment had one distinctive feature his didn’t. It was higher up. This meant a beautiful view towards the west, catching the sunset every day and putting it into his chambers. Unfortunately, it also meant that he had a good view on a very specific part of the city.

He wasn’t surprised when one morning, only a few days after they had come to the city, he had an angry demon on his doorstep.

“Angel what did you do?” Crawley was standing in front of him, restless, breathless, one might even say panicked.

“Come on in, dear.” The angel stepped aside to let him pass.

Crawley hesitated at the step, something the demon rarely did for he didn’t usually care much for personal space and barged into rooms without asking. He eventually came in, his anger displayed clearly on his face. But there was much more to his emotions, the angel could tell.

“So”, Aziraphale took a deep breath.

“What were you thinking?” The demon kept on touching his face in an exasperated manner.

“What do you mean?” He played dumb, not knowing how to explain himself. This was about the change in the city skyline. He gave the humans only a few pointers, nothing too crass.

“You know what I mean!” Crawley’s voice was getting more aggravated with each word.

“I have a sense of what you are referring to.” Aziraphale looked down, shame flooding him. He had dreaded this conversation for a few days.

“Do you now? That’s nice, angel, tell me why then. Enlighten me on your logic.” The angel wanted to answer but Crawley wasn’t finished. “We talked about this. I was under the impression that we would talk before anything was done. After all these years you override me like I am still your damn enemy! I told you”, he paused, clearly hurt, “I told you I come here a lot, never meddling with their ways, this is a place I go to when I want to see them do things themselves. This is a place I took you to, to see this specific wonder of humanity.”

“I know, Crawley. I know.” Aziraphale wasn’t usually very soft spoken, but he couldn’t raise his voice at the demon. The other being had a right to his anger.

“I just don’t understand why you meddled. I recognize the houses that are being built. I recall their architecture, I remember you developing this system to fit more people in a small space back in Asia!”

“I did what I thought was right. These people need a place to go and the city wanted to take them in, they were just lacking space!”

“Oh that’s rich, angel! You just did what you thought was right, sure. These people, as you call them, can make choices for themselves! Don’t you think they would figure this stuff out? You took the chance do to good from them because you wanted to feel better about yourself!”

“I was put here to help! That’s all I did: help.”

“You went over my head because you feel the need to rescue them, even though they don’t need it anymore. They don’t need you anymore and this scares you. I can relate angel, believe me I really can. But it doesn’t make this any better!”

This hurt Aziraphale. Was the demon right? Did humans no longer need his guidance? Was all he was doing an act to feel more important than he was? Was he… interrupting the plan?

“I”, he finally spoke up again, “I don’t know if your right or not, Crawley. But even if they would figure it out, how long would it take them? How many people would starve before the gates of their city, how many would die of injury or be forced to flee to another place? How many would actually get there?”

“They are humans, angel, all they ever do is die! They need to learn from their own mistakes. You swinging by, placing savior and disappearing again aren’t helping them! They do the right thing, yes, but they don’t know why! In the long run, it makes things worse not better.”

“Well, I’m glad you are so unfazed by their misery, but I’m not! I am an angel, I love them dearly and I can’t leave them to their own, stupid devices.” Not again, he added in thought.

“Oh, granted I forgot about that part! You’re an angel, never thought about that! All those years of you doing soooo many angelic things really should’ve given me the right idea, huh?”

Aziraphale huffed. This was getting unnecessary personal. “I don’t need you to tell me how many times I screwed up, I do that enough myself. It makes these moments where I actually can do something good all but more important.”

“You think you are so important”, Crawley snarled, his eyes were glowing more than usual. “You remember back in Rome when you said humanity was terrible and some things just had to happen? I had to convince you that they don’t always end up in chaos, but that good comes from it. A bloody demon had to remind you of that!”

“I am able to recall that particular phase of mine very well”, the angels face darkened. Of course he did. He would forever remember the time in his life where he’d just about given up; a cynic shell of an angel, unfazed by the terrible things happening. Back then he just wanted to be left alone.

“This place was just that: A spot on earth for humans to do their thing; untouched by by out joined incompetence, be it angelic or demonic influence. And they are doing so well! Or they were, I’d should say. Because you ruined it! You made them do something they didn’t want because you thought it was the right thing to do. Now, whatever happens is on you.” The demon sounded whiny and exhausted. He waved off Aziraphales tries to argue back and turned around, hands chasing through the air. “I’m gonna go… somewhere else… I don’t know. Don’t follow me. I need a break from this.”

He was right. Crawley had been so excited to come here and the angel understood why. All they did was shape humanity, be it in a positive or negative way, they never left them alone. The demon had been open and vulnerable about this and Aziraphale had betrayed him. He wanted to say these things, but he couldn’t, afraid of what it might do to their relationship. If he admitted to these things he would commit to their friendship, an unlikely partnership between two opposing sides. Aziraphale couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

So he watched Crawley storm off.

All he could do was hope that the demon would forgive him one day. After all, he had an eternity to make it up to him.


	9. The enlightenment of the Buddha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crawley is mad at the angel and reflects on his own choices in the past in order to forgive.  
> Also the Buddha was a little shit before he became the Buddha, who would have guessed?

In “563BC” a child was born. The year isn’t all that important to this story, especially since none of its participants know about the concept of BC and AD yet. One must also say that, once the humans started the BC/AD-trend (and actually managed to agree on the date the switch would occur), there had been a similar, yet perhaps more progressive way of identifying these time-zones: BCE and CE. God Herself liked the latter more; especially since the Jesus-thing happened two decades after the supposed year 0. All this was only happening a fair way into the future, and we will get deeper into this later in the story, so why tell it now? Well, to understand the importance of this special date, special enough to breach the narrative and look into the future, you must understand that time is a very tricky thing. Probably the most unnecessary invention of humanity and yet it had been one of its first. So apparently, keeping time meant something to humans.

A freshly born child was placed into the world on a day it would be raised to cherish, much like all other humans were, too. Funny, how something so important would end up completely wrong in the long run, as the year previously mentioned isn’t actually the year this happened. The day and year someone was born meant a great deal to humans, they just didn’t much care to get it right for others.

Regardless of the number future historians would get this year wrong (and oh, did it happene a lot), a child was born, because children didn’t care for their birthday yet. Birth (and subsequently the time it happened) only became glorified later in their lives. It was, however, much less glamorous for any inhuman being who would happen to be watching.

The procedure of childbirth is one of the fundamentals in human life that never quite changed over the centuries. It became a little better, but not really. Let’s just say, Crawley wasn’t the biggest fan of it. All of it. He didn’t have the nerves for children in general and the way they were produced seemed… spooky to him.

He didn’t mean to be there. It just happened. One day he was travelling the lands of the civilization of Northern India, the next day he was midwife to a royal woman, the wife of the price of that region, giving birth in a palace called Lumbini during a full moon. It was messy and he didn’t like it. But that was where his day was going and these days he lived his life in a Carpe Diem-manner of sorts.

When all was over the baby got named Siddhārtha and despite the fact that Crawley wasn’t the biggest fan of children he stayed. And who could blame him? After enduring a small trauma he was way too tired to continue his travels. And it just so happened, that the mother of the child was an excellent conversation partner, too.

But before he knew it, the mother, Maya, was gone. Crawley hated when that kind of stuff happened. So he stayed a little longer. Someone had to stay and watch the chaos unfold. After all, she was leaving her husband to remarry and her child to grow up troubled. One of the young princes many troubles were the endless oracles people consorted and divinations they told about him.

“What did your dad tell you this time?” Crawley slithered down the tree Siddhārtha was sitting under, eyes glowing curiously. He’d always kept close to the boy, giving him ideas to fill his days with and telling him about his mother.

The child sighted. “That I am going to be the great king of all the lands.”

The demon chuckled, “well, that’s a step up from the warrior prophecy last week.”

Siddhārtha nodded but the frown didn’t disappear from his face; the poor boy was constantly putting up with higher and higher expectations. His father knew how to keep him stressed, that was for sure; even if he did it without malice. He otherwise gave the child a life in luxury, personal servants to cater to his every need. The idea behind this was to keep him sheltered from the real world and all its aggression and pain. Meanwhile the father obsessed over knowing the future of his son, his legacy. It was all in all pretty standard behavior for royal families at the time.

While Crawley didn’t usually care about these things, he’d found an easy way into the head of the child and felt like it would be a bit of fun to stick around, maybe whisper some temptations once he was all grown up and mess with the realm of his family for a bit. As a demon, it was literally what he did for a living.

He slithered into the grass and let the sun warm his scales; it had been a while since he’d spent some time in his inhuman form. He always forgot how much more comfortable it was. His gaze followed the child around, as the boy was called to dinner and said his goodbyes to the friendly snake. Poor thing, he thought. So shielded, yet so burdened.

*

When child was no longer a child but a (somewhat) grown man, the bubble finally burst. Crawley had grown seriously concerned over the years. The child grew into an insufferable teenager (something that couldn’t be explained by a simple human biology lesson back then) and from there on out he’d gotten downright boring: Ignorant towards the world outside of the palace and still pained from the high expectations, but also awfully egotistical about his supposed right to be this unbeatable warrior-ruler he was prophesized to be.

No matter what Crawley tried, he couldn’t tempt him to do anything. The child was empty. No aspirations in life, no warrant to ever leave the palace, nothing stuck. Not even the stories of his mother. He was as much of a royal idiot as one could be. Incapable of accepting the fact, that he didn’t know anything about the world he lived in. 

At his 29s birthday, Crawley finally got through to him. More of an accident, if he was being honest with himself, but it worked so he didn’t judge himself on that. The day was, as was procedure for human birthdays, a cause for celebration and therefore filled with all sorts of sweets, presents and a gathering of family and family friends. The prince enjoyed these festivities on any other birthday of his, but this one was different. Crawley kept an eye on him, as he wandered off into the garden, humming a melody of sorts.

The snake waited until he settled somewhere before approaching him, more carefully now than in his childhood, for the prince had grown into an adult and adults usually questioned it when animals talk to them.

“Hello snake”, the man said, a faint remembrance crossing his face. He leaned back and looked at the stars. “It’s beautiful tonight, the sky I mean.”

Crawley kept silent.

“So many stars.” The prince seemed lost in thought. “You know I sometimes wonder what they are. All my father ever tells me is, that one day I will me one among them, forever shining in the sky for my achievements, but I wonder.”

The snake slid across the grass to be nearer to the man. So he’d been wondering, huh? Maybe there was more to him than he’d given him credit for. Crawley was known to be a bit of a pessimist at times.

“You don’t talk, of course you don’t.” Siddhārtha chuckled to himself. “I have memories of you talking, but no one remembers this except for me. I suppose I shouldn’t just let you sneak around here, huh? What, with you being a dangerous animal and all.”

The snake was unimpressed by this, and honestly a little offended. Sure enough, humans tended to forget the angelic and demonic influences in their lives, opting out of their own memories by inventing newer, less exciting ones, but dangerous? Really?

“Next year I will turn 30, a respectable age, or so my father calls it. I figure by then he will show me the rest of our reign. Frankly, I don’t want to go outside. It’s all the same to me.”

Crawley rolled his eyes. But there was potential here. A way in, if you will.

“You know”, he started carefully, his voice no more than a whisper in the man’s mind, “you can leave anytime you want. You’re a man now, a prince.”

The prince in question was… startled. Yeah, let’s say startled. Half terrified, half ready to punch whoever just spoke, he rose to his feet.

“Who said that? Show yourself!”

“I’m right here”, Crawley tried his best not to sound too snarky, “the snake you just old couldn’t speak, remember?” He tried his best but he didn’t succeed. Oh well.

Siddhārtha turned around to face the snake, his unwillingness to believe the animal plastered on his face. “You?”

“Yeah, me. Surprise I guess.” Children were so much easier to work with.

“But you’re a snake!”

“And you’re a 29 year old man who’s never been outside his parents’ house.” The prince didn’t look like he was about to run off, so Crawley was full on himself by now; still a snake, but with more flair. A snake one would see and immediately think: That is not a normal snake, but I like it.

“Fair point”, the prince said after a few seconds of thinking. “So, all those memories I have of talking with a snake, those were all real?”

“I’m not a snake, but yeah.” Crawley could see the confusion on the others face, so he elaborated: “It’s just one of my forms.” That wasn’t really helping, but what else could he do? Just straight up tell the kid he was a demon and risk getting negative feedback like that? Better not.

“Have you been outside the palace?” The prince asked, hesitation in his voice.

“Yes”, Crawley replied, thinking about his best strategy here; best not to be too patronizing. “What do you think is out there, prince?”

The other uncomfortably rubbed his arm, seemingly deciding if he should sit down again or not. He decided against it, leaning instead against a nearby tree for support (both moral and physical). “I’ve been told things. It’s like in here, but bigger, wider. And I remember everyone told me to stay put, that there is nothing out there I can’t find in here, too. All except for one.”

That would have been me, Crawley thought. He was pleased to see that at least some parts of their little chats were still in there. How many hours had he spent in the gardens, talking to the child about the world? The real world, that is. Not the palace.

“I don’t care for a bigger world”, the prince said suddenly, “but for a different one.”

*

He didn’t leave right away, but Crawley knew it would only be a matter of time. He noticed changes in the young man. Subtle, but they were enough to keep him there, looking over him with great expectations.

The four passing sights.

It was something the people all over the world believed in, but it was the demons first time seeing their effect directly.

The first was sickness. Siddhārtha’s little brother faded away over a few weeks after catching a disease. He had trouble breathing, stopped eating and began his life as a human corpse. Crawley caught the prince a many times in the garden, praying and crying at the feet of a statue, hoping for a better outcome, but alas it was to no prevail.

The second was a corpse. A child, wrapped in linen, put to rest after a short but hard fight. The prince stopped sleeping after the funeral and took to the holy scriptures instead. The light in his room was never dimmed, he spend hours studying the religion he grew up in, this time in a different light.

Crawley could feel the doubt eat through the prince’s mind. It wasn’t doubt of the gods, but of a bigger nature instead. It fed the demon for weeks.

The third was a holy man. Someone Siddhārtha sought out after he couldn’t work on his doubts in a chamber anymore. Crawley couldn’t enter the temple on palace grounds, as it was a sacred place, but he could tell the second the prince stepped outside of it that he was dissatisfied.

After that, sleep came as an even greater rarity to the prince. It came to a point where he would spend the night hours staring out his window, listening to Crawley’s whispers, his mind no longer contained by the walls of the palace and his body aching to follow suit.

The fourth and final one was an aged person. Someone withering away in their late years – at least that was the ideal. Reality was much more direct.

*

“It’s not like I’ve never wondered what’s outside! It’s quite simply unfair to keep me here!” The prince exclaimed in an unusual anger.

His father looked unimpressed by this. “You need not to wonder, my son, for the world out there is corrupting, especially for bright young men like yourself.”

Siddhārtha shouldered his bag and gave his father a long look. The fourth sight of passing was standing right in front of him. An old, bitter man, held back by ideals even older than him, not able to change and do the right thing. He finalized his doubts that very second, physically unable to stay in the palace a minute longer.

“I’m going. You can’t stop me.”

“I’m not trying to stop you, son. I merely wonder what I did wrong to allow the world to tempt you in this matter and more importantly, what I did that made you fall for it.”

The prince had turned his back but he could feel the words like daggers, making him feel the need to turn, apologize and stay. To tell his father that he was but a fool with a childish idea. But he needed to do this. It was the right thing, he was sure of it.

“You know, father, if I am ever to rule about the people outside, I find it only fair I know the lands. How can you be a good ruler without knowing the reality of the realm, the people that we call ours to protect?”

His father fell silent for a second. “It’s not like you’re the only one left to rule. If you are to step outside, know what you are leaving behind.”

Renouncing his life as a noble man; that was the price he had to pay. He thought about what he had seen and learned, about the snake he still wasn’t sure was real, the sickness and death and foul practice of religion – things that shook him to his core. He couldn’t keep on like this, his troubles would harden him, turn him into the harsh and aggressive man his father was.

“If this is what it takes to get a piece of mindfulness, to sleep again unbothered – then I will take that path. Goodbye father.”

Siddhārtha left the room, a sinking feeling developing in his stomach. He wondered if the right choice was still the right choice, even if it meant he would have to turn against his father, loose his place in the family and give up his claim to the crown.

All those thoughts vanished, as soon as he stepped afoot outside the palace. The stone stairs that lead to the front garden seemed reversed, as though he wasn’t descending but rather ascending on them. His chest was swelling with pride and excitement, his head spinning with curiosity.

His first steps into freedom, a desperate cry for something new, something to discover. Crawley was waiting on the end of those steps, ready to take the young prince’s new life and be by his side. It was his fault the prince had come this far, he wouldn’t want to miss any of the harvest from the thoughts he’d planted 29 years ago.

He was also bored to death.

God rejoined Crawley with unfortunate timing. She came to check in on the demon right as he was watching a birth. Yes, a real birth. Blood everywhere, a woman (rightfully) screaming and all that. Why was the demon witness to yet another birth, you might ask and so did God. The reason behind this stunt was Siddhārtha’s rising curiosity in the circle of life. He visited women giving birth and people on their deathbed. Studied the process of human life and found some peace in it, be it of questionable nature.

God herself knew about reproduction, of course She did. She made the humans, after all. But the specifics weren’t Her favorite part. She’d messed up a bit and it made Her squirm with embarrassment and frankly guilt. It wasn’t quite fair, but She was still learning at that point.

The birth went well, She was pleased. As were Crawley and Siddhārtha.

But the prince didn’t feel much better. He felt more at peace then before, but life and all its struggles were still messing with his sleep. Crawley could hear him toss and turn in one of those nights that were too hot to make anyone sleep, let alone those who deep down didn’t want to.

It was one of those nights, that he was wondering how the angel did.

*

“How many yoga teachers is that now Sid?” The demon asked with a sheepish expression on his face, the breath wearing of climbing down the mountain path ahead.

“I still haven’t mastered all they have to offer.” Siddhārtha replied, his face red and puffy like he was angry at himself.

Crawley let out a stifled laugh and caught his footing at a particularly steep part of their passage. He reappeared to Siddhārtha in his common human form after the former prince had left the palace. Both knew who he was, but it was rarely discussed. The demon knew that his company was welcome, even though he was a negative influence. Siddhārtha often scolded him on his flimsy nature, the way he wore his darkened eyeglasses around and refused to step foot onto sacred ground.

Still, the young man hated travelling alone and enjoyed the company of someone who didn’t take life too serious. Together they had crossed the lands, looking for teachers and teachings alike, to find nothing but frustration on Siddhārtha’s side. The demon had a splendid time.

The next yoga teacher didn’t offer any more relieve to the former prince than the last. Frustration made Siddhārtha take a dark path, one that wasn’t as much of a good time for the demon.

He took on four more companions, all of different heritages and believe systems but united in the mission to reach enlightenment. Well, all except for Crawley.

“How are you?” The demon asked, concern in his voice, as he approached his friend.

“Fine”, the man said.

He didn’t look fine. His cheekbones were coming in, hollowing out his slender face even more than before.

“You look terrible.” Crawley said truthfully.

“Well I feel”, he paused, “fine.”

“Really?” The demon cocked an eyebrow and glared from behind his glasses.

“Don’t look at me like that, this is the path to enlightenment. I’m sure of it!”

“Like you were sure when you tortured yourself with that whip? Or the time you held your breath so long you passed out? Or the million yoga teachers we sought out? You are looking for an easy way out, but nothing happens the easy way!”

“Are you saying me starving myself is easy, now?”

“Yes it is! You can sit in temples all day and night, starve yourself, don’t talk for weeks or mark your body with scars all you want – you are still not letting go! It took you 20 years to leave the palace, you think enlightenment will come to you after 5 years of yearning for it?”

“Then what else am I supposed to do?” The man stood up, shouting now. He was trembling from the torment his body had gone through, ribs sticking out, looking like one could plug them right from his torso. “I still can’t sleep!”

Crawley was getting a headache. Then, a memory came to his mind.

“Do you remember when you were but a boy, we had walked the garden all day and then you sat down under a rose-apple tree. You didn’t stand up for hours, eyes closed with a face filled by bliss.”

Siddhārtha nodded, his gaze fading into the distance. “Do you think… might it be possible that this was-“

“The first dhyana. Yes.” The demon waited a few seconds for the realization to form, before performing a small miracle. A child, not much younger the man had been that day in the garden, came by with a bowl of milk and rice.

And Siddhārtha ate; knowing, that he would need the strength to continue on his way towards enlightenment. The other men in his company left later that day, thinking he’d abandoned his journey, but Crawley stayed.

He stayed through countless hours of meditation, paired with Siddhārtha’s work on himself. The middle ground was the pathway he had to take. A road between self-denial and self-indulgence. His anger towards his father was what held him back. He had to take on his upbringing, to let it go. Siddhārtha had conquered his restlessness in many ways. He combated sickness with yoga, death with confronting all life stages, religion with praying in temples and now it was time to confront the aged. The old, withering ideals he had been born into.

At Bodh Gaya, Siddhārtha sat down under a Bodhi Tree and began his meditation. He awoke 45 days later with three kinds of knowledge gained. Knowledge about his past lives and the past lives of all beings; knowledge about the laws of karma; knowledge about the fact that he was now released from all attachments.

Crawley was one of those attachments.

Siddhārtha thanked the demon for their time together and apologized for the rumors that had spread. The other men, the ones that had abandoned Siddhārtha after he’d eaten, told stories off the demon Mara, how he had corrupted Siddhārtha and tried to keep him from enlightenment.

“It’s fine Siddhārtha, really. I’m actually rather thankful for it. I do have to keep a certain buzz going or else, what kind of demon would I be?”

“The finest kind.” Siddhārtha replied with a smile.

Crawley flinched, but ultimately returned the smile. “What are your plans for the future?”

“I will teach what I have learned.” The man said in a humble matter. Nothing was left in him of the anger and frustration.

“Will you be alright, my friend?”

“Of course I will. And we will meet again. If not in this life, then in the next. Now, I urge you to go and find your own path. Confront what is holding you back.”

Crawley smiled, but it was a bitter kind of smile. The human had no idea, what the demon was dealing with. There wasn’t much to confront, if he wanted to live. There was however one other ethereal being he could catch up with.

*

Crawley sat on a bench by the riverside and looked at the sky, his thoughts wandering back to his time in India and he smiled the same way he had then.

With a deep sigh he rose, making his way towards the living quarters of the angel.


End file.
